Former Youth and Sports Minister, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, has accused the Ghana Football Association of managing the national teams with a ‘lazy cow-dung’ approach.

The last 24 months have marked some of the lowest moments in national team performances, with the teams either failing to qualify for major competitions, or facing embarrassing early exits when they do qualify.

The Black Stars suffered back to back group stage exits at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2022 FIFA World Cup; the Black Galaxies suffered similar fate at the 2023 CHAN, with the Black Meteors failing to qualify for next year’s Olympic Games after their group stage exit at the U-23 AFCON.

The U-17 team, the Black Starlets, hosted and failed to qualify for the U-17 AFCON, while the U-20 team, which entered the qualifying series as defending champions, failed to qualify for the U-20 AFCON.

The former Sports Minister, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, says the GFA’s lazy approach to player development is the reason for the continuous poor showings of the national teams. 

“We continue to live on past glories and we are suffering,” he told Citi TV.

“We are doing the same thing, the cow-dung management style. We wait, and when there’s a tournament or qualifying series coming up, then we assemble players and play. Possibly, sometimes we qualify and say ‘oh we are doing good’.”

“It doesn’t work like that. Look at the 2006 World Cup team. Those players were nurtured and developed from U-17, U-20, Meteors, all the way to the Black Stars.”