The new sports director at the University of Ghana (UG), Dr Austin Luguterah, has criticised the attitude of politicians towards the development of sports in the country.

According to him, politicians are not 'committed' to developing the sector as they preach and only focus on including it in their manifestos for political points.

Ghana's sports sector appears to be in a state of decline, with major sporting disciplines including football, boxing, and athletics all facing challenges across major tournaments.

This, Dr Luguterah, believes is due to the lackadaisical attitude towards its development.

"Every politician pretends as if they are developing sports. I will say it clearly because if you are not pretending, for years and years that you are operating on sports why don't you have a sports policy?," he quizzed while speaking on JoyNews' Prime Take.

"Are you not pretending? And it's not as if they don't know that the other countries are having policies...All the countries we are trying to emulate have their policies...and we yet want to see the Premier League and be like 'We want to be like Manchester.'

"We are not committed and every year we just talk about the manifesto on sports. Their manifesto is their party commitment; it's not national binding."

Ghana had no representation at the 2024 Olympic Games in boxing for the first time since 2004.

The same can be said for football, as the men's national team has not qualified for the Olympics since the 2004 Athens edition.

The senior national team, the Black Stars, who have not won a major trophy since their 1982 Africa Cup of Nations title, were eliminated in the group stages of the last two editions of the tournament.

The nation has yet to claim a medal at the Olympics in track and field in about over five decades.