The Black Stars’ 4-2 defeat to The Gambia has reopened a much bigger conversation about the management and direction of Ghana’s senior national team.

Ghana surrendered a two-goal lead at the Accra Sports Stadium to suffer their second consecutive defeat in the opening two matches of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign. The result followed a 2-0 defeat to Côte d’Ivoire in Bouaké and left the Black Stars without a point from their opening two qualifiers.

The defeat has also come at a significant moment. Carlos Queiroz and the Ghana Football Association mutually agreed to terminate his contract on October 1, bringing his latest spell as Black Stars coach to an end.

Against that backdrop, the Ministry of Sports and Recreation and the GFA have now constituted a five-member committee to identify, evaluate and recommend a new head coach. The committee is chaired by former GFA Vice-President Fred Pappoe and includes Anthony Baffoe, Agbesi Dzakpasu, former Black Stars captain Stephen Appiah and high-performance specialist Faisal Chibsah.

The move by the Ministry and the FA is befuddling. The public outburst which has been loud and can be heard across the world following that 4-2 defeat, is not just because this was the first time the Black stars had suffered the ignominious defeat of that magnitude.

But because of the moribund management of the Black stars by the GFA. That’s what the public cried against.

Ghanaians were angered by the lack of transparency in the selection of players, alleged interferences in independent work of the head coach, the apparent unclear policy for management of the Black Stars team, the perceived corruption, favoritism and biases in player selection and management.

The response of the Minister was a far cry from public expectations.

In a miscalculated diagnosis and prescribed solution to the problem, the Ministry of Sports and the Ghana Football Association took the decision to set up a five member committee in search of the next black stars coach.

Is the search for the next Black stars coach the concern expressed by Ghanaians? No!

Was the coach the source of worry and complaint by the people of Ghana? The answer is a No.

Ghanaians were angry that the Black stars team had been mismanaged to the point where it could lose disgracefully at home to opponents from the Gambia.

The setting up of a committee to search for the next head coach of the Black stars doesn’t by any measure or stretch of imagination address the problem of the team. It is a faux pas or an own goal by the Governmental agency responsible for sports development in Ghana.

The fundamental issue bedeviling the team is management. Why and how was the GFA Executive council able to appoint and dismiss 7 coaches in 7 years.

In Science of Chemistry, we would rightly assume that Management of the GFA has remained as the Avogadro’s constant while every other structure including players and technical team became the variable factors.

Why would the sports Ministry indulge the GFA to further plunge the scarce resources of the country in yet another predictable event and outcome, to wit, to appoint another coach whose output would make a little or no impact on the already decayed substructure.

In the current circumstances, celebrated coaches like Pep Guardiola, Alex Ferguson, Mourihno, etc, won’t survive.

Instead of changing the dressing on the cancerous lacerations, it is better to do an amputation of the leg where the root cause of the problem lies instead of the wishy washy pretentious solutions that would just be a soft scratch of surface of the wound and bring us back to square one.

That is ultimately the question: is Ghana changing the coach because the coach is the problem, or because changing the coach is easier than confronting the deeper problems within the system?