The Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin has directed the Committee on Youth and Sports of Parliament to submit a report on their investigations into the poor performance of the Black Stars at AFCON 2021, to the House by the end of February 2022.
Rt Hon Alban Sumana Bagbin gave the deadline today for the submission of the report when the Member of Parliament for Okai Koi Central, Hon Patrick Yaw Boamah, drew the attention of the Speaker to the fact that the First Deputy Speaker, Hon Joseph Osei Owusu, who directed the Committee on Youth and Sports on Wednesday 26th January 2022 to investigate the performance of the Black Stars at AFCON 2022 did not include any deadline for the submission of the report.
The Minister for Labour Relations, Hon Ignatious Baffour Awuah, suggested to the Speaker to extend the deadline for the submission of report by the Youth and Sports Committee of Parliament to the end of March 2022, instead of February 2022, to enable the Black Stars concentrate on their World Cup qualification match with Nigeria slated for March 2022, but the Speaker said the Committee should stick to the deadline he has given.
“Who the hell is he?” – KT Hammond Rants
In a related development, a senior member of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Hon K.T Hammond, has taken a dig at sacked Black Stars coach Milovan Rajevac, using some unprintable words on the Coach on the floor of Parliament on Wednesday 26th January, 2022.
The former Algeria gaffer supervised Ghana’s worst performance in the history of the Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Cameroon where he failed to win a single game from the group stage.
Following the four-time African Champions’ exit from the AFCON, Rajevac stated in an interview that his primary target was to qualify Ghana for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar but not to win the Africa Cup of Nations tournament.
That comment, did not go down well with the Adansi Asokwa Member of Parliament, who blamed Rajevac for the Black Stars shambolic displays in Cameroon.
“Coach Milovan or whatever his name is, who the hell is he? The man comes in you sack him and then somehow somebody decides that this old whatever he is should be brought back to Ghana, is he the only thing that God gave to the football fraternity of Ghana? And you talk about players not respecting local coaches and that is why they went for a foreign coach,” KT Hammond said.
“One horrible statement that I’m told ‘because I told you I didn’t watch it (Ghana v Comoros) it was those who watched it that told me that he said it at the after match interview’ he made a very stupid if it is true. Mr Speaker, stupid statement, a derogatory statement, a racist statement that well he has come to make sure that we qualify for the world cup. Can you imagine?”
“Ghana is the only place that if we are going to play, God has to be our goalkeeper or striker….God has so much to do that he is always being called. Mr Sports Minister, sack the coach if you haven’t done that already or you yourself will be sacked. Let us not waste money on bad coaches of that calibre, it is not good. Let us get our locally trained coach to partner the boys,” he fumed.
Milo Kicked Out
Meanwhile, the country’s football governing body later in the evening, announced the sacking of Milovan Rajevac.
Executive Council of the Ghana Football Association has parted ways with Coach Milovan Rajevac.
The decision to dispense with the Serbian’s srvices, follows the receipt of the Technical Report from the Coach, the Medical Report and the Report from the Management Committee following Ghana’s early exit from the 2021 AFCON tournament.
The Executive Council after considering the three reports and engagements with key stakeholders decided to end its relationship with Coach Milovan Rajevac and also decided that the Black Stars Management Committee be reconstituted.