Renowned sports journalist and legal practitioner, Sammy Bartels, has blamed the woes of the senior national team on a lack of planning.

Sammy is convinced that this lack of a plan to build a formidable Black Stars team will be reason Ghana’s performance on the continental and global competition will remain poor.

“We don’t have a plan and when you don’t have a plan, you are essentially groping in the dark,” he said on MultiTV’s current affairs programme, PM Express, on Tuesday evening.

His comment follows yet another disappointing Afcon campaign by the Black Stars in Egypt.

The national team failed to impress in their first two games in Egypt, briefly impressed with a two-nil win against Guinea Bissau but crashed out of the competition after losing to Tunisia in a penalty shootout.

The Black Stars were the favourites in the clash against Tunisia but their inability to progress to the next stage of the Afcon tournament stoked debate about how to return the team to its glory days.

Ghana won the Afcon trophy 37 years and has since been struggling to pick a fifth trophy.

Providing his views on Black Stars predicament on PM Express, Sammy Bartels said it was about time managers of football accept the hard truth that political interference and cutting corners – which he said permeates Ghana football – will not deliver results.

“When you are groping in the dark, you should know when you are at the crossroads and your team is not as strong and you should measure the expectations and know what to do. Unfortunately, the last two years have not been very usual because of the exposé and the subsequent removal of the FA executives. And so in that uncertainty, nothing really has been put together,” he analysed.

‘Ghana football is dead’

Former Editor of Kotoko Express, Jerome Otchere, gave a stark assessment of Ghana’s football situation.

“We would have to look at what others are doing that are getting them results and be courageous enough to accept that not until we go that path, we will not also be able to achieve – the path is going back to the basics,”

In his view, Ghana football, as it is now, is dead.

”Right after this [Afcon] competition...we would have to accept that Ghana football is dead,” he stressed.

Watch more in the video below.