There is no love lost between The Ghana Football Association(GFA) and the Retired National Footballers Association of Ghana (RENFAG) on the nagging question of recruiting foreign coaches for our senior national team Black Stars instead of making use of the local coaches

Immediately after the World Cup in Germany 2006 when Serbian Ratomir Duijovik quit the Black Stars after an impressive World Cup debut and the Football Association were looking for a coach,the RENFAG made their intention clear that they did not a foreign coach. The GFA however stood its grounds and went ahead to recruit Frenchman Claude Le Roy. His mandate was to lead the Black Stars to win the Cup of nations 2008 being hosted by Ghana and then proceed to qualify the Black Stars for the 2010 World Cup South Africa.

When the Black Stars began to falter in series of trial matches the RENFAG was very vocal and questioned the quality of work by the coach. The Ghanaian football public was not too enthused about the selection of players for the national squad but the GFA was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all the Africa Cup was what mattered most the GFA maintained.

Come Africa Cup 2008 and Coach Le Roy failed to assemble a trenchant team that could win the cup for the first time since Ghana won it in Libya 1982. In fact Ghana had to struggle for the bronze against Cote d'Ivoire.

Ghanaians were not too happy with the performance of the team and blamed the coach but he was surprisingly backed by the Football Association who even took a step further to propose an extension of his contract amidst national uproar.

But to add confusion to disbelief Coach Le Roy was reported to have secretly applied to coach South Africa which he denied. But it was obvious from his demeanour that he was not too enthusiastic to continue his stay in Ghana. As he finally summoned enough courage to tell the GFA he could not extend his stay the GFA abrogated his contract and summoned his former assistant Sellas Tetteh who had been assigned to the junior national team to take charge of the Black Stars.

It is not clear whether Sellas has been given any formal contract. His assistant Kwasi Appiah former skipper of Asante Kotoko has a one year contract. At very short notice Sellas and Appiah had to take the Black Stars to Sydney Australia for a friendly against the Kangaroos which the Stars lost 0-1. The general mood of the Ghanaian football public is that every body is prepared to give Sellas and his assistant the peace of mind to succeed. The Black Stars team in Australia played without key stars Michael Essien of Chelsea and Sulley Muntari of Portsmouth but since they will be available for the World Cup preliminary against Libya in Kumasi on June 1st a proper assessment of his coaching ability could be made after that match.

Meanwhile the general concern is that Sellas should not be taken for granted. If he is a stand-in coach he should be properly rewarded even without signing any contract. His nationalism to accept challenges at short notice should not be taken as weakness and it would be a good idea if RENFAG would come to his aid to see that the appropriate emoluments are given to Coach Sellas and Kwasi Appiah for responding to this national call.

If they are able to make a good impression they would have made a strong case for all those who are clamouring for a local coach for our senior national football team the Black Stars.