Bashir Hayford hit out at media for campaign against local coaches

By Patrick Akoto

 

Medeama FC head coach Bashir Hayford has slammed the local media for providing the platform for fans to lambast local coaches in Ghana.

Indigenous Ghanaian coaches have come under massive criticisms in the past few months following their failures to successfully handle junior national teams.

Ex-international Frimpong Manso failed to secure qualification for the 2011 Africa Under-17 Championship late last year.

The home-based national team under Herbert Addo were humiliated at the CHAN tournament in Sudan early this year.

Former AshantiGold boss David Duncan also supervised a side that was shown a shock exit in the London 2012 Olympic Games qualifiers by minnows Sudan.

The current situation has put the technical acumen of local coaches into question with huge barrage of attacks from journalists and local fans.

But the ex-Asante Kotoko boss says the media has been unfair to the current hostility towards local coaches.

Hayford told Accra-based Peace FM: ''A lot of thing go into competitions and so if one or two coaches go to international tournament and fail to deliver, that cannot mean that all local coaches are bad."

''The way all local coaches have been bastardized and criticized in Ghana cannot be fair to all of us. Ghana has had lot of foreign coaches in the past but which of them have helped us win any major title on the continent?

"The kind of support expatriate coaches receive from the management committee of the various national teams cannot be compared to when a local man is in charge of the team.

"We’ve had great coaches like Sam Arday, Osam Duodo and others who have won title for the country and so the bashing must stop."