Sports
Appiah: Thomas Partey ideal for Arsenal
Kwesi Appiah says that his Ghana team-mate Thomas Partey has all the attributes on and off the field to be a big success at Arsenal.
The 27-year-old joined the Premier League side on Monday from Spanish side Atletico Madrid for his buyout clause of £45m.
Appiah, who most recently played for AFC Wimbledon, has played with Partey as part of Ghana squads in recent years and is confident that he is a good fit for Arsenal.
“Under Mikel Arteta, Arsenal is playing a lot of ball possession and playing out from the back and that will really suit his style because he is very comfortable on the ball,” Appiah told BBC Sport.
“Obviously, Spain has a very technical league as well so there is a lot of ball possession and passes being made; so it will suit him very well.
“The top teams in England play that way as well so you are looking at a player who is going to fit in quite easily.
“You look at Manchester United and the way Bruno Fernandes and the way he has taken the Premier League on so I see it as being a similar transition for Thomas.
“He has got that quality and style of play that Arsenal is looking to play so it will be a perfect match.”
Appiah, who played for Ghana as they finished runners-up to Ivory Coast at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, also has no doubts he will fit in to the Arsenal dressing room as well.
“He is a very nice guy, down-to-earth and he is a confident guy; he speaks well and he will get on well with the players,” Appiah added.
“There are some personalities at Arsenal that will match his energy and playfulness as well so I am sure he will fit in very well in the dressing room and be one of the leaders amongst the players as well.”
Partey’s journey to Arsenal has seen him work his way up from village football in Ghana to winning European titles and now to the Premier League.
His most successful year so far was 2018, when he won the Europa League and European Super Cup with his former club Atletico Madrid.
Since then he has been a regular starter for Atletico; making more than 40 appearances in all competitions for the Spanish side in both of the last two seasons and was part of the Ghana squad at last year’s Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt.
Those feats in 2018 earned him a nomination for the BBC’s African Footballer of the Year and this is what he had to say at the time about his journey from dusty village pitches in Ghana to European football’s top table.
“It’s not easy for a guy like me to come from a background where I had nothing to be at this level,” says the 25-year-old.
“I started in a small village where my father was the Team Manager. He did a lot of sacrifices which he never told me about.
“It was him selling his stuff to try and get me those new boots.”
The first place he made an impact was at local side in Krobo Odumase in Eastern Ghana.
“He was a good boy, very respectful and would rise up to every challenge,” says Ibrahim Issaka, one of his first coaches. “I knew Partey would become a star because he can play anywhere.”
Partey comes from a long production line of Ghanaian defensive midfielders, where the likes of Stephen Appiah, Sulley Muntari and Michael Essien made their name at the top of European football.
“I tried to be like a ‘stopper’ using the intelligence of Michael Essien, and also attack. I use the strength of Yaya Toure,” he says.
It was Partey’s natural ability that helped him get spotted by Atletico scouts.
He left Africa to join the Spanish side in 2011 – in a secrete journey that even his parents did not know about.
“I got into a car, they took me to the capital, and they gave me my passport and said: ‘Today you travelling,’” he told Marca earlier this year.
“My dad wasn’t at home. Nobody from my family knew anything, or where I was going that day – because if they were told then it would cause a lot of problems. I travelled to Spain and it was six or seven months before anyone realised that I wasn’t in Ghana.”
His first coach in Spain was former Atletico Madrid midfielder Alfredo Santaelena.
“As soon as we [the coaches] all saw him, we all agreed that he would be a player of the future,” says Alfredo. “He is a player with an innate talent.”
After loan spells at Mallorca and Almeria, Partey made his Atletico debut in 2015 and improved under manager Diego Simeone’s guidance.
“We all know he’s a great coach, one of the best coaches on the planet. He helped me to adapt to any position he put me in,” says Partey.
He will now be trying to impress Arteta and the Arsenal fans with what he has learnt from Simeone and his determination to continue improving.
Sports
Gaging sports gains in 2024
In 10 days’ time, the year 2024 will pass as one of the most eventful years for sports as a nation.
It may be so due to the myriad of sports activities that got the various national teams and individual clubs busy with international competitions.
But one may also be right in asking what is there to show for those adventures.
Truthfully, one would prefer to walk from Accra to Tema than attempting to answer such a question.
Although there were a few gains to celebrate, the weight of failure clearly overshadows it and leaves sports fanatics in wonder land; uncertain about the direction of sports in Ghana.
Taking stock of the country’s fortunes regarding sports is more or less an annual ritual that usually provide similar answers years in and out; and this year will be no exception.
On our sports calendar, football has been the busiest with the Black Stars involved in FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFCON 2025 qualifiers.
The latter left Ghanaians heartbroken with an unprecedented outcome.
In a group that had Angola, Sudan and Niger, the Black Stars failed to register a single win; losing three games and drawing the same number to finish at the rock bottom of the table with three points.
Eventually, the group was won by Angola’s Palencas Negras and Kwesi Appiah’s Sudan.
The USA, Canada and Mexico World Cup 2026 qualifiers, however, appears to be going well for the Stars with Ghana in second position behind Comoros with the same number of points – nine, out of four matches.
Other countries in Ghana’s group (Group I) include Madagascar, Mali, Central African Republic and Chad, the whipping boys in the group.
The Stars started the qualifers well, chalking a 1-0 home win over Madagascar but was pegged back by Comoros which beat Ghana 1-0.
The team, however, bounced back from that disappointment to beat Mali 2-1 in Bamako in one of the team’s finest performances in the year under review and recorded a 4-3 victory over the Central African Republic (CAF).
At the centre of the Black Stars performance storm was Head Coach Otto Addo who came under an avalanche of criticism for the team’s poor performance.
Ghana Football Association president, Kurt Okraku was also not spared of the backlash as his resignation became the clarion call on the lips of many.
But the two have shown they have very thick skin or might have developed a ‘dead goat’ syndrome, granting them the immunity to withstand the fiery darts of their critics.
On the continental level, FC Samartex and Nsoatreman FC made attempts to rescue Ghana’s free fall but that failed to materialise as their challenges in the CAF Champions League and Confederations Cup competitions collapsed before the league stages.
But there was success for Ghana in football following gold medal performances from the male and female teams in the African Games football competition.
It appears some successes were chalked at the sub-continental level with Kurt Okraku reaping a few results from the WAFU B level.
The Golden Arms, the national armwrestling team was obviously the best team having snatched a total of 41 medals at the African Games consisting of eight gold, 19 silver and 14 bronze medals.
Boxing recorded seven medals, athletics had six, weightlifting had three medals, hockey had two, and taekwondo recorded two medals while swimming had two and volleyball, one.
At the Paris Olympic Games, it was more of participation and acting as tourists than winning medals as Ghana fell short in all the disciplines competed.
But once again, it exposed the issues about poor preparation of athletes and lack of proper facilities back home to help local athletes.
Perhaps, one of the biggest shocks was the failure of the national boxing team, the Black Bombers to qualify for the Olympics.
Generally, it was not an encouraging performance from sports in the year. It actually marked a dip in performance as professional boxing failed to produce a world champion just like athletics, taekwondo, handball, badminton, table tennis, tennis and the others failed in their respective bids.
With a new government set to assume the reins of power and sports development to be championed by a new Sports Minister, it will be incumbent on the responsible agencies for sports development and promotion like the National Sports Authority (NSA) and the various sports federations to put their act together and work towards reviving Ghana sports to its past status.
By Andrew Nortey
Sports
Resetting Ghana sports
In a few weeks’ time, returnee president, John DramaniMahama, will assume the reins of governance after taking his Oath of Office on January 7, 2025.
This follows the National Democratic Congress (NDC) historic feat in the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections held on December 7.
That ended the eight-year reign of President Nana AddoDankwaAkufo- Addo and his vice, DrMahamuduBawumia, of the New Patriotic Party.
It’s been less than a week after JDM’s declaration by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission who doubles as the Returning Officer of the presidential poll, Mrs Jean Mensa, but several calls and suggestions have been flying across the corridors of power.
For bitter NDC faithful, top NPP officials who were alleged to have been involved in shoddy deals should be whisked away by the police or the respective agency in charge of investigation.
Others have urged the new team to hit the ground running in a bid to alleviate the pain and difficulties in which Ghanaians find themselves.
Followers of sports are not left out in this regard. They want to see a lot of changes as part of a mammoth agenda to RESET the nation.
This may be coming on the back of the reality that Ghana sports in the past few years have been on a backward trajectory.
At the last Olympic Games in Paris, members of Team Ghana were mere passengers and tourists. The only excitement seen on the faces of Ghanaians was not as a result of a medal won but the sight of watching members fly Ghana flags during the opening ceremony.
The celebration was about the projection of Ghana as active and regular participants at the games but always far away from the medal podium.
The height of the disappointment was the Black Stars’ failure to qualify for the 2025 AFCON – the first miss in 20 years.
In a qualifying group that had Angola, Sudan and Niger, the Black Stars under Coach Otto Addo ended the qualifiers winless – drawing three and lost same.
That is not to suggest that the other national teams are performing any better.
Apart from the national U-20 team, the Black Satellites, that triumphed in the football event of the last edition of the African Games hosted in Accra, Ghana’s success in football has been in minor competitions in the West Africa Football Union (WAFU) B region.
It has been so with many or all of the sports disciplines operating under the National Sports Authority (NSA). Athletics, boxing (both pro and amateur), handball, volleyball, basketball, taekwondo, kickboxing, tennis, table tennis, cycling etc. are experiencing similar fate.
Maybe, the only shining light is the sport of arm-wrestling, Ghana’s Messiah at the African Games.
Obviously, this is not a good record for a country that considers herself as a sports nation and clearly remains one of the first and foremost sectors that needs resetting.
What is of paramount interest to Ghanaians at the moment are the qualifiers for the USA, Canada and Mexico 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Fortunately, the Black Stars languish in second spot with an important away victory over Mali doing the magic.
Under the upcoming administration, fans must see a new composure and attitude reset to meet the challenges to qualify for the World Cup.
Football on the local scene must also see an improvement in teams’ performances and administration.
The brains administering the game must also be reset to understand and admit that the local players are capable of delivering the same results from the foreign legion at a much cheaper cost.
The other disciplines would also need massive push to come up but in all of this, sports with comparative advantages must get the nod over those that should be reduced to recreational sports.
Above all, the sector will need a supervisor with a good knowledge about the area to lead the resetting agenda in order not to lose focus or fall to the conspiracytheories of the sophisticated administrators.
By Andrew Nortey
