The Ghana association is not too amused by the fact that the head coach of the senior team, Avram Grant, is not monitoring the games of country’s top flight domestic competition and is instead focussing on his media assignments in England.
According to one of the senior officials of the association, it has been strictly conveyed to Grant that he is being expected to come back as soon as possible.
Not only has Grant been doing media commitments, but he has also been helping StanJames on their virtual football offering, helping to tweak the gameplay and back-end to make the game engine as realistic as possible.
That official was quoted as saying, "Grant has been told to get back to the country at the earliest. We would like him to be present in some of the games going on in Ghana League at the moment."
"We have a qualifying game with Mozambique just around the corner and the coach has to be here for the preparations to get started. Ghana has to face Mozambique in back to back games later this month."
As far as Grant is concerned, it’s not the first case of a coach taking charge of a team from Africa and then, spending his time doing punditry covering the matches of some other league and it’s justifiable to some extent as many star African players appear in those leagues and thus, making it easy for the coach to keep a watch on them.
Also from Ghana, the likes of Baba Rahman and the others play for the Barclays Premier League clubs and being in England, working on TV, Grant can easily observe their form and fitness.
But, obviously, the association’s point is quite valid too that the coach’s job is to build the team keeping the future in mind and that he can do only if he follows the emerging talents who are playing domestically and Grant is not being able to do that presently.