Information Minister Congratulates Ghanaians (page 31)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah
THE Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mrs Oboshie Sai Cofie, has congratulated Ghanaians on supporting and helping to lift the spirit of the national team, the Black Stars, during the just-ended Ghana 2008 tournament.
The Minister said just like many other Ghanaians, she was highly impressed with the performance of the team, which, to some extent, was boosted by the enthusiastic crowd which supported them on and off the field of play.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Minister called on the people to continue with their show of patriotism and “not allow it to expire with the end of the game”.
She said it was refreshing to observe that when the team failed to qualify for the finals, people stopped criticising both the players and the coach and rather stood firmly behind them.
Mrs Sai Cofie said in spite of the fact that the national team was not able to win the cup, the excellent performance put up by the players had further pushed the popularity of the nation higher on the world map.
She thanked individuals, groups and institutions which supported the team both in kind and cash, adding, “We as a nation are fortunate to have such a young team which could be built on for the future. The team needs our continued support”.
The minister said Ghana had always been considered as a football-loving nation but never in the history of this country had so much been done for the game, and noted that people had to sacrifice their basic needs to acquire items made in the national colours to support the team.
The Information Minister said one of the reasons why the rest of world had now come to know Ghana without confusing it with Guyana had to do with the Black Star and encouraged the players to continue to answer national calls.
She said although they were faced with so much criticisms when things did not go well with the team, the players should accept that it was due to people’s passion for the game and their desire to see the nation win.
“I was surprised to hear children as young as six years talk about the tournament and discuss what the coach or this or that player did wrong. What can one expect since we are a country of 22 million coaches?” she observed.
Touching on the tournament, Mrs Sai Cofie said though people were not happy with the way some aspects went, especially ticketing, she pointed out that Ghanaians should congratulate each other and accept the fact that there were bound to be problems since the stadia had limited space and could, therefore, not have accommodated all those who had wanted to watch the matches.
On media accreditation, she observed that all was not well when the game began and expressed delight that the initial mistakes were corrected to allow sports journalists who were supposed to cover the event to do their job.
She said it was important to look at the benefit the tournament had brought to Ghana and said there was the need to make use of the physical infrastructure which were put up for the tournament and gain from them.