Ghana FA hire sports psychologist for Black Stars
Posted On Wednesday, 10th October 2012
Patrick Ofori is the new sports psychologist for the Black Stars
By Patrick Akoto
The Ghana Football Association has engaged the services of sports psychologist Patrick Ofori to counsel the Black Stars.
The newly appointed psychologist will be required to improve the player’s mental toughness and performances services to ensure the team is well-conditioned for competitive matches.
The Ghana Football Association have been pushed to engage the services of the psychologist following the fall-outs from the 2012 African Cup of Nations held in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
The team placed a disappointing fourth at the continental showpiece but allegations of the use of ‘Black Power’ by some of the players drew wild public criticism and ridicule.
Serbian trainer Goran Stevanovic cited the use of ‘Black Magic’ (juju) by players against each other as one of the chief reasons why the West African giants failed to win the cup in his official report to the FA.
Authorities have therefore moved quickly to prevent a potential recurrence of the embarrassing situation if the team qualifies to next year’s African Cup of Nations in South Africa.
“In the aftermath of the Nations Cup 2012 in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, we came across some problems whose remedy lay at the time in the appointment of a psychologist. Ghana FA boss Kwesi Nyantakyi said
“And so we thought that issues of superstition, self-confidence, beliefs and other thoughts that affected the team could be settled or resolved through the appointment of a sports psychologist.
He added: “We’ve re realized that our team doesn’t do well in away matches as compared to competitive matches and the problem is more pronounced during friendly matches.
“We think that the trend must change and that the challenge is psychologically in nature.”
Ofori has over 3 years of professional experience in Human Resource Management and Development and Applied Sports Psychology.
Since 2006 he has concentrated on designing and implementing Human Resource Management (HRM) Systems in both commercial and non-commercial organizations, particularly in the areas of Manpower Planning, Training and Development.
He holds a MSc. Degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology from Loughborough University and a BA in Psychology with Sociology from University of Ghana, Legon.
In 2009 he was awarded Commonwealth Scholarship for his PhD at Aberystwyth University.
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What a joke.If Akwasi Appiah cannot motivate the boys,then he should be sacked.
You think this arrogant bunch of bench warmers are going to pay any heed to some local psycologist with three years experience?l don’t think so.
The problem with our current crop of players is that,they are not hungry enough for success.
They are so satisfy with the weekly pecks and not bothered sitting on a bench.
When they come to Ghana women are opening their legs,left and right for them.
It surprises me why the likes of Adiyia,Inkoom,Ransford Osei who showed so much promise have become bench warming proffessional in unknown leagues.These guys should be playing in the spanish,Italian ,English ETC leagues.
This psycologist nonsense will be a fisco.It is only a desperate measures by Nyantakyi to cover his finished ideas.
The best practice is to start to psych the players at the under 16,17 levels not when they have grown horns.Absolute joke.
It looks like Ghana Football is at a crossroad. We are not doing well in away games because of poor strategy and not because of a psychological problem. If my memory serve me well, we qualified for our first World Cup drawing 2 games and losing only one. We won the rest of our games both home away including victories against South Africa and Cape Verde in their own backyards. When qualifying for the 2010 edition, we beat both Mali and Sudan away. Again we beat Sudan, Congo and Swaziland away in the 2010 AFCON Qualifiers. So the problem of not doing better away is technical and not psychological. Akwasi Nyantakyi and all those who think all is well must wake up now. Right now the road looks foggy indeed.
all the top international teams have this. It is very important, fantastic move by the GFA.
GOOD MOVE, BUT WAT EXPERIENCE DOES HE HAVE IN THIS FIELD CONCERNING SOCCER?
They should get a world class psychologist and not some inexperienced joker. The coach shoul also be a trained psychologist who can work on the players psychologically. However, we welcome the move by Mr Nyantekyi. We hope it will mark the beginning of professionalism. I am rather surprised that they have been without a psychologist all this while.
Kay, do you think Mr Nyantekyi would be happy to go to a dentist with only 3 years experience and a lot of it not in dentistry, but in human resources? Likewise, do you think Mr Nyantekyi would be happy for his wife to visit a building built by an engineer with only 3 years experience and some of that in human resources? The answer is probably the same as the answer to the following question: Do you think Mr Nyantekyi will be pleased if whoever takes over his position has no managerial experience and no appropriate university training? Change takes courage and bigger change requires even more courage!