National team coaches working on empty stomach, demand monthly salaries

The Graphic Sports understands that apart from head coaches of the Black Stars and the Black Queens, all the other national team coaches are working without binding contracts with the GFA.

A number of coaches disclosed to the Graphic Sports that last month they were paid some stipends which was as low as GH₵4000 while their assistants got much less after working for more than a year.

Disrespect for coaches

For the coaches, the absence of contracts makes their jobs highly insecure while the paltry sums received amounted to an insult and gross disrespect to them, particularly when expatriates who work for the FA always have very good conditions of service.

One of the coaches lamented the poor treatment meted out to them and implored the FA to immediately draft a contract for them to know how much they are entitled to at the end of every month.

“Since we were appointed, nobody has been paid until last month when we were given something small. We don’t have a contract and we don’t know how much they are supposed to pay us per month,” he said.

Apart from the senior national teams, the Black Stars and Black Queens, the GFA has appointed technical handlers for the Black Stars ‘B’, Black Meteors, Black Satellites, Black Starlets, Black Princesses and Black Maidens who occasionally receive stipends from the FA’s coffers.

The coaches said they had suffered such a plight for a number of years even before the Kurt Okraku-led administration took office in October 2019.

“We can’t be working without being paid. The GFA and the Sports Ministry should do something about it,” lamented one of the coaches who said the GFA had promised to seek sponsorship to be able to put them on a payroll but until then they had to work on an empty stomach.

“They [GFA] said they were working on it. They want to get corporate Ghana to come in and support. From the previous administration to this new one, we’ve all been fighting to be paid but the FA said they were working on it. It is unfair for the ministry to allocate all funds to only the Black Stars because the development of football starts from the juvenile level. We are working for nothing and that’s why it hurts when you return from tournaments and you are met with insults. If we don’t also don’t do it, football will die so we have to be in and fix it,” he noted.

GFA finances

A GFA official admitted to the Graphic Sports that the FA had an ad hoc relationship with the coaches and was unable to pay monthly salaries because it did not have the needed finances to put the coaches on contracts as was the peculiar case of coaches of the senior national teams.

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The FA official explained that when the current administration took office, it put together a document for the ministry to consider placing the national coaches on regular salaries, but it was given the go ahead to prepare contracts for just the Black Stars and Black Queens coaches.

As of now, the other national team coaches and their back-room staff only receive occasional allowances, including per diems and bonuses when they play competitive matches, the Graphic Sports understands.

“We can only prepare contracts for the coaches when we receive the green light from the ministry. We’ve held meetings and explained the situation to them [coaches and other technical staff] that currently we cannot enter into contracts with them to work with the FA on full-time basis and that is why we allow them to work for their club sides. Hopefully, when the FA’s finances improve and we get the go-ahead from the ministry, we can engage them full time and put them on contracts,” said the FA official.

Source:www.graphic.com.gh