Sports
Community spaces where children once played freely have either vanished or become commercial facilities that charge users by the hour. “We’ve taken all that away,” he lamented. “Now we’re charging GH¢300 or GH¢400 to open these parks for just two hours.”
Where does a great footballer begin? Not under stadium floodlights. Not inside a high-performance training centre.
According to veteran sports journalist Godfred Akoto Boafo, the journey begins on the streets, in community parks and on open grounds where children play for hours without pressure, coaches or whistles.
Speaking to Kafui Dey, Akoto Boafo argued that Ghana’s football development crisis has little to do with a lack of talent. The real problem, he said, is that children are losing the freedom to simply play.
“Football development happens at the base. It doesn’t happen at the top,” he said.
He pointed to the stories of football legends across the world, noting that many of them perfected their skills in informal settings long before they entered organised academies.
“Whichever football documentary you’ve listened to… they tell you, ‘I was playing in the streets.’ That’s where they hone their skills.”
For him, structured training alone can never replace countless hours of unplanned football among friends.
“They do not hone their skills during the two-and-a-half hours of training,” he explained. “They hone their skills by being able to pick up the ball, show up on the pitch and just kick the ball for hours and hours.”
But that freedom, he believes, is disappearing.
Community spaces where children once played freely have either vanished or become commercial facilities that charge users by the hour.
“We’ve taken all that away,” he lamented. “Now we’re charging GH¢300 or GH¢400 to open these parks for just two hours.”
The result, he warned, is that football is becoming less accessible to the very children who need it most.
For families struggling to make ends meet, paying hundreds of cedis simply to access a pitch is unrealistic. Many talented youngsters are therefore denied the opportunity to develop naturally before they ever meet a coach.
Akoto Boafo believes Ghana risks losing future stars not because talent has dried up, but because the spaces that once nurtured talent have quietly disappeared.
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