Former Communication Director of the Ghana Football Association Ibrahim Sanni Daara has made a passionate appeal to the media ahead of the new Premier League season which kick off at the various match venues across the country.
Mr Daara believes the Ghanaian media fraternity has a big role to play in the paradigm shift to bring the domestic football back to it’s feet.
Read the full statement below
“Dear brothers and sisters,
I hope we all celebrated Christmas in great health and joy. Long may it continue to the New Year and beyond.
Ghana football begins this weekend – forget about the national teams for now. Let’s minimise the interest in the EPL, LaLiga, Bundesliga etc.
The domestic leagues make Ghana football.
Ghana football is a complete chain that directly affects us, entertains us and creates opportunity not only for the clubs, players and fans but also all of us working the media.
Knowing where we have come from, my humble appeal is for us to shift our focus from the foreign leagues to the local leagues because the price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change. For us in the media we will benefit more from local football than the foreign leagues.
Whether we supported Kurt or not, like they say ‘after elections no campaign’. It is now our duty to come together to support the efforts of the new leadership to make our local football a success.
I am not saying if there is the need to criticise we should not criticise but we should be measured in ensuring we keep our watchdog role with constructive criticisms while projecting our positives more so the industry can become attractive to local fans, corporate bodies and subsequently strong foreign corporate interest.
This is something I have learnt from the EPL or European football just this year.
Racism scandalised their game this year with no less than 33 incidents yet their media reported on it, smothered it and continued to project their best parts that’s the game. This is why, they have weathered the ugly racism storm – at least for now.
By this it shows clearly that Ghana football, like every human institution, will have challenges but we must take the approach of helping the GFA to improve with positive criticism but not criticism to destroy.
We can’t build an adaptable Ghana football without an adaptable media because the media are the key drivers of this versatile change. We have the big opportunity to change and grow until we hand over to the next generation.
If we are given the option to change or die, I’ll choose life and I am sure we will all choose life. So please let’s choose life for Ghana football”
