THE Ghana Football Association have fired Black Stars coach, Charles Akonnor, just a week after a lifeless defeat, against a makeshift Bafana Bafana, in a 2022 World Cup qualifier at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.
The West African powerhouse, who were favourites to win Group G of the qualifiers for a place in Qatar, have struggled in their two World Cup qualifiers against South Africa and Ethiopia.
They squeezed a 1-0 home win over the East Africans in the first game, before going to Bafana Bafana
Their next assignments are back-to-back matches against the Warriors, who anchor the table with just a point from two matches, next month.
It means both teams will be under the guidance of new coaches, when they meet in those two matches, after the Warriors also parted ways with their hapless coach, Zdravko Logarusic, on Sunday.
The Croat was dismissed by his employers at ZIFA after he failed to meet a revised target of picking at least four points from the two matches against Bafana Bafana and Ethiopia.
Loga will go down as the worst coach to take charge of the Warriors, with his men picking just a single win in the 14 matches, they played under his guidance.
His backroom staff of assistant coaches, Tonderai Ndiraya, Lloyd Chitembwe and Benjani Mwaruwari, who was only recruited ahead of the match against Bafana Bafana, was also dismissed.
Only team manager, Wellington Mpandare, who has a separate contract and only manages the Warriors as part of his role as ZIFA national teams’ general manager, was spared the axe.
It is widely expected Norman Mapeza will be unveiled, as the caretaker coach of the Warriors, for their next four World Cup qualifiers, today.
Reports also indicate Benjani will be retained in that coaching set-up given there is agreement within the ZIFA leadership his input in the mess in the dismissed Warriors technical team was both limited and insignificant as a new recruit into the fold.
The Ghanaians have also followed suit and dismissed Akonnor and his two assistants, David Duncan and Patrick Graveres.
In 10 matches, in charge of the Black Stars, Akonnor had a win rate of just 40 percent, winning four, losing four and drawing two.
The GFA said the team’s defeat in South Africa, was unacceptable.
“The executive council of the Ghana Football Association has taken a decision to terminate the appointment of Black Stars Coach Charles Akonnor and his two assistants with immediate effect,” read a GFA statement.
“This follows the receipt of the technical report from the head coach of the Senior National Team and the report from the Black Stars management committee following Ghana’s Group G World Cup qualifying matches against Ethiopia and South Africa.”
The GFA have forced a three-member committee, made up of their vice president Mark Addo, Upper East Regional Football Association chairman, Alhaji Salifu Zida and Randy Abbey to find a head coach, and his assistants, within the next three days.
Akonnor took over as Ghana coach, in January 2019, as a replacement to Kwesi Appiah.
Interestingly, he had been an assistant to Appiah, having coached Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko, a club which Loga also took charge of, before becoming the Warriors coach.