I have listened to all the debates on air as to how best to we can improve upon the quality of our league.
If I heard the GFA President right, he suggested bringing to our stadium and match venues renowned artist as one of the ways which will aid in bringing people to the stadium and parks.
Fair enough, that was his opinion and whether we liked what he suggested or not, it has paved way for all stake holders and connoisseurs of our local league to bring to light their own opinion which to me is a good path we are travelling.
I admire some of the comments that have been made even though some were more personal than being analytical, but all we want to achieve is a common purpose; the purpose of improving the standard of our local league.
But to me, improving the standard of our local league is more than having renowned artist presence on the field of play.
It needs a carefully crafted and well thought-out plan to nip this problem in the bud.
I believe what am about to mention, if taken into careful consideration, will go a long way to help our local league.
First of all, I think we need an effective academy system by the Premier League clubs.
Effective academy system by the premier league clubs should be the first criteria to enable any club to play in the Premier League. With the aid of seasoned scouting team for the clubs, this should be an easy task of feeding into the academy system with young talent.
These academies will in turn feed their parent clubs in the Premier League with players. The academy system ensures smooth transition of the club's sustenance because these talents coming from the academy already know the system which exists in their parent club.
Take Barcelona for example, they have been so successful in Europe in the past ten years because of their better academy system. Xavi, Iniesta, Bousquet, Pedro, Messi, and many other players came from their academy and this has increased Barcelona’s trophy winning spree against their key competitors.
These talents save the club huge amount of money which would have gone into purchasing big name players, some of whom yield negative results in the end.
The money saved can be used to improve players wining bonuses. So a better academy system should be the first option before any club can play in the premier league.
Another area that must be addressed with seriousness is our playing fields. How do we ensure that our clubs play on better pitches? I believe the FA in conjunction with the government should help finance these viable projects which can pay off in the future. There is no doubt that better pitches help promote beautiful football and beautiful football brings people to stadium. I think the FA should open accounts for this project and deduction made from the matches of these clubs should be saved to help with the sustainability of this project. The government must then support the project with some finances as part of its responsibility to build sports infrastructure.
In order to improve the standard of our game, we must improve the payments and allowances of our players. This is where it gets interesting with some small mathematics.
The Premier League clubs should be made not to register more than 25 players for every season. Mathematically, club administrators, the technical teams as well as the players will all benefit when the squad size is cut.
Imagine having only 25 players in each team. Multiply 25 by the16 clubs and that will be 400 players. With this number, the Ghana FA must school the government to understand the benefit of investing in football. If the government decides to top up each players monthly salary with GHC300, a total of GHC 120000 will be spent every month.
Assuming the government will do this for a period of ten years, the first three years will cost an amount of GHC4320000.
This strategy, I believe, will help keep our players in the Premier League and consistency will be the order of the day. Consistency breeds quality of play and quality of play brings people to the playing venues and trophies both home and Africa.
When players excel in the CAF Champions League, their market value will surely go up. If you sell 10 players at this stage for $1M each, it sums up to $10m after 3 years. With this amount, the government can recoup its money back.
The fourth point is having motivating price tag for the league title. If you know the reward for a particular activity is huge, you will put in your maximum effort to gain that reward. Playing the league without a motivating price tag is like planting trees in the dry season. The reward is zero. If clubs know that the price is huge, they will fight competitively for the price hence curbing the numerous bribery allegations in our game.
One other thing the Ghana FA must ensure is enforcing the rules and regulation by the federation. These rules and regulation should be applied to all clubs equally without fear or favour. This will forestall all the court cases which bring the league to a halt.
Lastly I don't have to talk about promotion because if even English Premier League matches are promoted on various TV stations, radios and the dailies then how much more the Ghana league. For a better Ghana league, we should have a holistic discussion devoid of insults. The media must be ready to play their role in promoting the matches instead of only waiting for officialdom to err to take them to the gutters. That will not help our game.
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