Kwesi Nyantakyi Fingers Media For Focus On Black Stars

Ghana FA president Kwesi Nyantakyi has rebuffed claims that the federation focuses on the Black Stars insisting that that accusation must be leveled at the media.

Nyantakyi says while just about 20% of the GFA activities is on the Black Stars, the media main focus is on the senior national team while rejecting the other team and other aspects of the game.

The CAF Vice President says despite the federation's efforts to draw the media's attention to the other activities of the game, the media is only interested in covering Black Stars affairs.

He says the media instead of giving equal attention to other programmes and activities of the association with regards other levels of footballing in the country, many of the media houses spend too much time reporting on Black Stars issues.

He asked critics of the association to instead direct their fire towards the media who have been biased towards the Black Stars yet want to accuse the federation.

Nyantakyi cited several instances when the various national team train or play matches with little media attendance while Black Stars training is packed with media presence.

Nyantakyi insists that the media should be blamed for focusing their attention on activities of the Black Stars to the detriment of the other sports.

“That is a criticism I have many times but it is unfounded. It is rather the media that has paid so much attention to the Black Stars, it is rather the soccer fan that has paid so much attention to the Black Stars,” Nyantakyi said.

“I have been to Prampram to watch matches the women teams and regrettably you won't find any media person there.

“They play at the Accra Sports stadium and the spectatoring is sparsely populated.

“The Black Stars just goes for training and all the media men are there with their recording devices.

“The spectators and supporter groups are there singing, chanting, some carrying banners of player and what have you.

“Then the same group turn and says the GFA is paying more attention. You are paying more attention.” he asserted

He emphasised that the GFA spends less than 25% of its time on the Black Stars but doesn’t find it surprising that many people have their attention on the Black Stars

This he said is because “every country has just one Senior National team and that's what FIFA uses to grade or rank your country as doing well or not, so naturally if your attention is there it is understandable, but it is not the GFA that has spent too much time on it”.