Posted by One time Ghana Black Stars captain Joe Addo has stated that their main problem during their time with the Black Stars were administrators.
Joe Addo, who featured for the Black Stars from 1990-2000 and was part of the team that represented Ghana at the 1996 summer Olympics in USA made this revelation in an interview with Joy Sports.
“Our major problem were our administrators. They made a lot of promises that they did not fulfill. When we were in camp, the sports minister and GFA president and the likes used to come to camp and promise us money if we win particular games but the money never came.”
“Those times when we were coming to Ghana from abroad, we paid our own tickets. They used to tell us to come and they will reimburse us but they never gave us that money”, Joe told Joy Sports.
Joe went on to add that they (footballers) were not even given products from sponsored brands to wear, they were even warned not to exchange jerseys.
“I remember taking a look at the Norwegian women’s team coming from their team bus and realized that they were wearing the same uniforms, the same sneakers and all that. In our team, you wear anything you have. The funny thing was we were all sponsored by Adidas.”
“The officials (Ghana) were wearing the Adidas products but we weren’t wearing anything. We were usually always warned to never exchange jerseys with the opposition or risk going to the field bare chested next time”, he added.
The former Hearts of Oak man went on to add that all these circumstances played little impact on their performances and they were mainly unlucky not to have won an AFCON.
“You have to have a lot of luck to win [AFCON]. We were in two finals but lost both on penalties and that was unlucky. It was not about preparation because we really did that. The local players used to camp in Winneba for a year before the tournament.”