My friend Ebo, who is always prepared to manufacture an excuse for any Manchester United defeat, is convinced United's 1-0 loss to City in the FA Cup semi-final was designed to ensure the city of Manchester becomes the new Mecca of English football and the home of championship trophies.

I may not wholly agree with his assertion because I believe sincerely that if Berbatov had not been his usual wasteful best United would have won the game even in the first half.Ebo is confident fans will see Manchester United again at Wembley soon and it could well be the UEFA Champions League Cup final.

You would say that is a rather bold prediction but it is a distinct possibility.  Alex Ferguson would only have to play his cards well and call to order some of his irascible senior players who are having problems with discipline at this peak period of the season.

Rooney's utterances into a TV camera the other day that caused his two match ban, Paul Scholes rash tackling that resulted in a red card against City and Rio Ferdinand's violent conduct after the loss to City do not speak well of a team like Manchester United, easily one of the best clubs in the world.

Football purists see City's win as welcome change because for the first time in decades Alex Ferguson's noisy neighbours could have a sniff of silverware. United are in pole position to snatch the Premiership so an FA Cup triumph by City would put the entire football populace in the midlands in a festive mood.

It is this kind of festive mood that Ghana would miss following the elimination of both the men's and women's football teams from the 2012 Olympiad in London.  When the Black Meteors messed up things and lost to Sudan in the men' division, all hope was put in the  Black Queens to make amends but they could not stand Ethiopia who eliminated Ghana  on the away goal advantage.

As things stand now, Ghana would most likely have a skeleton team comprising, a few boxers and athletes.  This is sad news for Ghana sports but I back those commentators who insist nobody should shed tears for Ghana. The reason is that for the past two years, those in charge of Olympic sports in the country have spent all the time fighting for positions with little or no attention for the sports practitioners.

Indeed, it came to a point when Ghana had two Olympic committees with two presidents. The International Olympic Committee had to step in and suspend Ghana before officialdom sat up and quickly and hurriedly managed to undertake some damage control and appeared to be streamlining affairs.

All this while, the sports practitioners did not know their fate. One would therefore say it serves the nation right that such a calamity should occur because the nation did not seem to attach any importance to the Olympic Games which is the biggest sports event on the planet.

As things stand now, keen observers of the Ghanaian sporting scene will definitely look out for the number of officials who will travel with the projected skeleton team of athletes and boxers for the London Olympiad and especially those who will pretend to be attending meetings of the Olympic sports bodies.

This scenario always reminds me of my Nigerian colleague who said during a discussion that “in West Africa, every soldier is a potential head of state. Everybody wants to be head even if there is no state”.

Can we say the same about Ghana Olympic sports officials? Everybody wants to head the Olympic Committee even if there are no sportsmen and sportswomen to cater for.

The sporting world is quite exciting indeed. Cheers everybody and keep loving sports.