Media Forced Le Roy Out Sportnet Boss

The exit of Claude Le Roy as Black Stars Coach has been blamed on unfair criticism from the local media and internal wrangling caused by a perceived interference from top officials of the Ghana Football Association (GFA). Mr. Daniel Asiedu Asare, chief executive of Sportnet Ghana Limited, local representatives of Puma, told the Times Sports yesterday that the media, especially, played a major role in the coach’s decision. He has seen and heard enough in this close to two years period that he has stayed in Ghana. The media was just not circumspect about some of their allegations about the man (Le Roy). The fact is, he dreads another two year term in a football-crazy nation like Ghana where every fan claims to be a coach and where the media appear to harbour ill-intentions against the man, he said. According to the Sportnet boss, the media created an impression that the coach was arrogant and is here to sell players when he had stayed in the country for barely a month. Unfortunately, all those allegations, he said, were not established by the media, creating an unhealthy working environment for expatriate coaches who takes managerial roles in Ghana. Already, past coaches like Mariano Barreto, Milan Zivadinovich and recently, Ratomir Dujkovic all had problems with the media and that should tell the media there is something wrong. Additionally, he cautioned that, much as you perform your watchdog role as journalists, it is also important to respect the people you come into contact with because they are also professionals and the way they see things and go about them is quite different from how you go about it. Again, he stated that Le Roy’s decision to quit the job could also have been motivated by perceived interference from the corridors of the FA. Mr. Asare pointed out that he believes certain players who gained call-ups into the national team were forced on him by some officials of the FA. And facing the harsh reality of his exit now, the Puma representative believes that is not the end of the road for Ghana . However, in our quest to head – hunt for a replacement, it is prudent to choose a coach with vast experience in the game on the continent. He stressed the need to hire coaches for longer periods since that will ensure continuity and get to know the players – both locally based and foreign based – well. On the recent extension of the FA’s mandate by congress, the highest decision making body in Ghana football, Mr. Asare says it does not speak well of the game. I understand the reasons cited – that they needed to prepare the team for the world cup and cup of nations – but Ghanaians know the two can be done simultaneously, he said. In his opinion, the decision is a bad precedent which could plunge Ghana football into turmoil.