SOURCE: Ahashie Judeliver Eli
Ghana’s national Amputee football coach, Richard Obeng, has revealed some of the challenges faced by the team during their recent triumph at the 2024 African Amputee Football Cup of Nations (AFCON).
One of the most striking revelations made by Coach Obeng was the team’s need to purchase their jerseys at the Kantamanto market in Accra. “The jerseys we wore to participate at the AFCON, we bought at Kantamanto. This was not catered for,” he stated in an interview with Starr FM.
The fact that the national amputee team had to resort to buying their match jerseys from the bustling Kantamanto market, known for its vibrant secondhand clothing trade.
Coach Obeng further elaborated on the limited nature of the team’s sponsorship, stating, “The sponsorship, the minister was talking about, was just tickets and participation fee. That was all. No hotel or nothing.”
Addressing the team’s accommodation during the tournament, Obeng shared, “The Hotel in which we slept for the tournament was taken care of by the local organization committee. We did not even have camping. This our budget. We never received anything from our budget. The only thing we received from our budget is the participation fee, which was $8,500.”
Coach Obeng emphasized the team’s awareness of the need to account for their expenses echoed by the Sports Minister, Mustapha Ussif in their recent meeting , stating, “It’s not my private or a private club that, as the Minister said, yeah. So we are aware that one day we will have to account, you know what? 2021 yeah, when we traveled with our own money, we still have account of that on our record, right? But nobody asked us to bring our expenditure.”