Ghana’s Ibrahim Sannie Daara has made history as the first person to lead media activities at the expanded Africa Cup of Nations after being named the lead media officer for Friday’s opening match between Egypt and Zimbabwe.
The Ghanaian’s appointment for the opening game of the competition was a massive coup for the former journalist as the best CAF officials are named for matches of such magnitude.
The ex-Ghana FA communications director was named among the match officials for the historic game that saw the two sides opening the tournament that has been expanded from 16 to 24 teams.
With the opening match of Africa’s biggest sporting event being shown live to television audiences in over 200 countries in the world, this shows that Sannie Daara is considered among the best football media officers in Africa.
To cement his place as among the best in Africa, Sannie was named among two people to take charge of media operations at the Cairo International Stadium which will host the opening and final matches of the tournament.
Officials appointed for the venues of the opening and closing matches are the best as these are the most important and normally most watched matches of the competition.
This makes him Ghana’s leading person in football media operations as he is the first person from the country to have been appointed to such position on the continent.
The former journalist has already been working on some of CAF’s media operations as well as the Media Experts Panel which serves as the media advisory body of CAF.
The latest appointment represents a continuous rise for Sannie Daara who worked as the Director of Communications for the Ghana FA and the hugely-successful WAFU Cup of Nations in 2017.
He takes charge of the media operations of the opening match of the AFCON with a wealth of experience and knowledge in communications and the football industry and brings considerable energy and focus to the job.
The award-winning ex-BBC journalist is one of Ghana’s famous football journalists having worked for the BBC for eight years and has a huge experience covering Africa football.
He has also been instrumental in the creation of several new media organisations focused on African football and has been credited for training several sports journalists in Ghana.
He has won several awards in the journalism profession including the prestigious Foreign Press Association (FPA) Award in the UK which is the crowning achievement of any journalist’s career.
Sannie Daara holds a Masters degree in International Journalism from one of the world’s leading journalism schools, Cardiff University, in the United Kingdom.
By: Patrick Akoto
