Head Coach of Ghana’s senior national football team, Charles Kwabla Akonnor has challenged local based players to deliver consistent performances if they want to be mainstays in his squad.

It has become a regular occurrence that local players often invited to the Black Stars don’t get playing time.

This is quite different from the past when Black Stars lineups had a decent blend of both foreign and local based players.

Akonnor shared memories of how he made it into the national team then as a local based footballer.

“When I started playing, the likes of Frimpong Manso, Armah ‘Senegal’, there were senior guys you know, ‘Mayanga’, Salifu Ansah the goalkeeper, we had majority of locals in the national team…I started playing in the national team as a local player before I traveled abroad” he told the Ghana FA’s official channel.

Akonnor concedes that much has changed since then. He underlines a lacunae exisiting between the foreign based players and their local colleagues.

He believes not much quality and consistency can be found in the local league and he is challenging local players to improve in this area and he will reward them with playing minutes.

“The locals, when you see them with the professionals (foreign based players), there is a big gap. And that is up to them (to work on that)”.

“Of course, once I see a player doing well, I will give him that chance. They should also believe that they are coming to play, not even to be on the bench, and that will show automatically in training”.

“These are the kind of things, they would have to do and it has to come from the individual. Yes we’ve seen them, I’m not going to close my eyes on them, once they are doing well”.

From his message, its clear the Black Stars Coach expects commitment, quality and consistent performances from the local lads.

The former AshantiGold and Asante Kotoko head coach believes consistency has been the bane of most local stars in the Ghana league.

He wants that to be quickly addressed and challenges local players to show an unyielding hunger for success.

“My research tells me in Ghana no player has been able to play three matches on the top. 3, 4 its a challenge,they should challenge me”.

“First match on the high, second middle and third you drop, and fourth on the high, No!!. They need to be consistent in their performance and they will automatically get in there” he concluded.

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