Editor and sports enthusiast, Ben Ephson has called on President John Mahama to rename the Ministry of Youth and Sports to Ministry of Black Stars to better reflect what it is doing.

In Mr Ephson’s opinion, although the Ministry of Youth and Sports is charged with the development and ultimate success of a wide range of sporting activities like volleyball, handball, hockey, and table tennis, both past and present leaders of the Ministry have concentrated on the senior national soccer team, the Black Stars, even to the detriment of the other soccer teams and the local league.

Speaking on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem morning show, Ben Ephson, Editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper said the Ministry of Youth and Sports had concentrated on just one aspect of its mandate, and it would be expedient for the president to rename it to reflect its activities.

"I think that Parliament should agree that we should name it Ministry of Youth and Black Stars. Because every government since 1992, from Rawlings’s time, every Minister of Youth and Sports has concentrated on the Black Stars and left the others. Why?

"They say they want to market Ghana, so in Kufour’s time, Mills’ time, Mahama’s time, when it comes to the Black Stars, then everybody puts on his marketing cap. The world cup is on every four years, so what do we do in the intervening three years?

"We all heard the issues that arose about the budget, the amounts that leaked and all.

"They always say there is no money to fund the other sports. Volleyball teams qualify for international tournaments but we say there is no money. Handball teams qualify, but same story. Black Queens and all. Yet find $3 million to send 500 people to Brazil because it’s the Black Stars.

"How do you hope to improve handball? Volleyball? They should just change the portfolio to Ministry of Youth and Black Stars," Mr Ephson, who regularly plays volleyball on weekends, declared.

He warned that many of the people scheduled to travel to Brazil for the tournament will likely end up watching the matches on TV in their hotel rooms, indicating that Brazilian embassy officials in Ghana had expressed worry that although they had granted visas to the travelers, no arrangements appeared to have been made for internal travel within Brazil.

The 32 teams will be playing at 12 widely dispersed stadia involving hours of travel, sometimes by air and the officials warn, all internal flights have been booked solid.