Ghana Football Association President, Kurt Okraku, has broken his silence following the disappointing performance of the Black Stars at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Ivory Coast.
Ghana’s early exit from the tournament came after they failed to secure a victory in any of their group stage matches. With two draws and a defeat, they finished third in Group B, trailing behind Cape Verde and Egypt.
This setback marks Ghana’s second consecutive failure to progress beyond the group stage of the continental championship, with their previous exit occurring during AFCON 2021 in Cameroon.
In a media engagement on Wednesday in Kumasi, Okraku expressed his dissatisfaction with the Black Stars’ performance at the tournament.
“Ghana was represented by our beloved Black Stars. The happenings during the tournament has not been what we as Ghanaians would have loved to see and as servant of football we’ve never been happy about how our team performed”
“As an FA, we provided and ensured that the team had all the logistics that they needed to enable them perform, what did we see of the team, the performance of the Black Stars fell below our expectations. Clearly, what we saw of the team was not what we expected. That target of envy has eluded Ghana for over 40 years and as servant of football our dream, our hope, our desire is to break that target of envy back to Ghana, it didn’t work out”
Reflecting on the period since Ghana’s last game against Mozambique, Okraku emphasized the need for introspection. He highlighted the importance of seeing the national teams and league clubs play good football and achieve positive results.
“The period between our last game against Mozambique and today have been a reflected perioed for us. We saw our Black Stars in Abidjan, it is not the Black Stars that you want to see and this is not the Black Stars I want to see, I want to see our Black Stars and all our national teams and all league clubs play good football and win games” he said.
