Renowned Ghanaian researcher Thomas Freeman Yeboah is claiming to an improved find as to who truly is the all-time leading scorer of the Black Stars.
The Metro FM Sports Journalist have thus written a full feature that alludes that Edward Acquah and Kwasi Owusu are tied on top of the list as the all-time leading scorer’s of the Black Stars on 40 goals apiece.
This means current Ghana captain Asamoah Gyan have at least five more goals to score at international level to shutter this record.
Below is the full feature of Thomas Freeman Yeboah
After so many days of debate, arguments and counter arguments, the big puzzle in Ghana’s football history is solved. This puzzle is who is Ghana’s all time top scorer in international football? I want to sound political this time round by quoting, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana “At long last the battle has ended and Ghana our beloved country is free for everâ€. The same way will I say that at long last the battle on who is the all time top scorer for Ghana in international football has ended and Ghana football, our beloved sports is on its way of being free forever. It is always good to get positive results after any hard work and this motivate you to ask for more research works to do like Oliver twist asking for more.
Let me first and foremost enlighten people on how international goals are calculated. We should notice that, not all goals scored by a player for his country is an international goal. FIFA has its own way of determining international goals and any goal scored by a player must conform to this. For example FIFA in calculating Edson Arantes Do Nascimento’s ‘Pele’ goals in 2001 discounted a match FIFA organized in 1968 between Brazil and FIFA 1X. Brazil won 2-1 and Pele scored against FIFA 1X, but FIFA is of the view that it was not a game against a nation. If anybody wants to cross check, ‘google’ “Edson Arantes do Nascimento "Pelé" - Goals in International Matchesâ€,source ‘RSSSF’.In the course of this argument a lot of people have quoted renowned sports administrators who wrote in their days about goals scored by some former national team players, in their days, without taking into consideration whether the matches Ghana played were international standard per FIFA ratings or not. For instance Edward Acquah scored all the five (5) goals Ghana scored against Blackpool in 1962. He also scored three of the four goals Ghana scored against Kenya Representantative, after he had already scored three goals in Ghana’s 6-3 victory over the Kenyan national team in the East African tour in 1962.Kwasi Owusu also scored all the two (2) goals in Ghana’s 2-1 victory over Al Merreikh in Sudan in 1968, whiles Mfum also scored 7 goals in a trial match in the 1960’s but such goals won’t count as part of their international goals because they were against club and representative sides. Kwasi Owusu’s three goals against Nigeria in a world cup qualifier which ended abruptly in 1973, is also not considered in this analysis because Ghana were declared winners on technical grounds, hence nullified the three (3) goals.  No wonder people are quoting over 100, 50 and 60 goals for Edward Acquah, Baba Yara and Kwasi Owusu, respectively. One thing that this exercise has helped resolve is by saving the young captain of Ghana, Asamoah Gyan from scoring over 120 goals in order to beat the all-time top scoring record of Ghana.
This work started with me, discrediting the truth behind, Abedi Pele’s 33 international goals for Ghana, which was supposedly the all-time, top scoring record, until Asamoah Gyan scored to take his tally to 34 in Ghana’s 3-1 victory over Sudan in Omdurman in a world cup qualifier. In this analysis I put down the modalities used to calculate the goals scored by all players for Ghana by stating emphatically that ‘RSSSF’, which is a FIFA accredited statistical body, has got data on all international matches Ghana played since 1950, but there is no information on the scorers, so what I did was to use that information, which has the dates the various international matches of Ghana were played to track the scorers from the archives, making the work simpler. I also stated that there were some matches with no scorers attached with, from the available archives. This is how come I got the number of goals scored by Abedi Pele, Edward Acquah, Baba Yara, Mfum, Osei Kofi, Kofi Pare, Kwasi Owusu, etc. As a researcher with track record in the area of Ghana sports and looking at how important this issue became to Ghanaians, there was the need to ask myself questions like, could there be matches that were played especially friendly ones that were not captured by ‘RSSSF’? This compelled me to consider taking every year since 1950 to date, by going through every date. For instance if you take 1951, I had to go through every month starting from 1st January to 31st January and the same was done for all the other 11 months in 1951. This same exercise was used for all the other years from the 1950’s to date. After going through everything, I realized there were matches which were not published by ‘RSSSF’ especially some few friendly matches Ghana played and this enabled me to get some additional goals for some former Ghanaian internationals, for example Edward Acquah’s 30 goals increased to 40 and a player like Kwasi Owusu had 4 additional goals. This exercise needed time, money and everything, within me to come into this conclusion. No wonder very few people are into sports research, because it is something which doesn’t pay and at the same time the little you earn from other works, is spent doing research, may God save Ghana sports. For now I can say with much certainty, that this research is a complete one, but every research has some margin of error, so other people who are interested in this issue may research into this matter. I have done this job as a professional researcher by removing all kinds of biases, personal sentiments, etc in order to produce a good work for all interested parties in Ghana sports, so that in the future, no one will rise up to challenge this work I have toiled day and night to produce.   Â
Ladies and gentlemen I will use this opportunity to declare to you Ghana’s all-time joint-top scorers in international matches since the inception of soccer in the country. These two players scored 40 goals each and they are in the persons of the late Edward Acquah and Kwasi Owusu. Edward Acquah was known in his playing days as the man with a ‘Sputnik Shot’. He started his career as a goalkeeper before being converted into a striker for Eleven Wise, Real Republicans and also featured for the national team from the 1950’s to 1964. He died in 2011 at age 76. Kwasi Owusu ‘Power House’ who was born in 1945, hails from Nkoranza in the Brong Ahafo region. Kwasi Owusu played for Bofoakwa United and captained the Black Stars from 1975 to 1977.
In addition to this work on Ghana’s all-time top scorer in international football, I have come out with Ghana’s all time top scorer in competitive international football. Competitive games for Ghana involve World Cup, Nations Cup, Olympic Games, All African Games and qualifiers involving these competitions. The person who holds this record is Kwasi Owusu with 28 goals. This is followed by Asamoah Gyan-20 goals, Edward Acquah -13 goals, Abedi Pele-12 goals, Wilberforce Mfum-11 goals, Osei Kofi-11 goals, etc.
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Four (4) additional goals scored by Kwasi Owusu after further research
28/03/1976 Ghana 4-0 Togo Kwasi Owusu             Friendly
11/09/1974 Ivory Coast 1-1 Ghana   Kwasi Owusu  Friendly
23/03/1975 Upper Volta 1-3 Ghana  Kwasi Owusu 2 goals Friendly.
These 4 goals when added to the 36 goals obtained from the first research will take his goal tally to forty (40).The 36 goals were published on this site on Wednesday 12th June,2013.
All the 40 goals scored by Edward Acquah
12/10/1964 Argentina 1-1Ghana Edward Acquah      Olympics Games Rd 1
18/01/1964 Liberia 4-5 Ghana: Edward Acquah 2 goals, Olympics Games Qualifier
26/11/1963 Ethiopia 0-2 Ghana: Edward Acquah 2 goals,African Nations Cup Rd 1
27/02/1963 Ghana 4-0 Mali:Â Edward Acquah 3 goals, Nkrumah Cup Final
23/02/1963 Ghana 5-0 Nigeria: Edward Acquah,  Nkrumah Cup Sf
15/10/1962 Malawi 0-12 Ghana: Edward Acquah 4 goals, friendly
17/12/1961   Ghana 5-1 Nigeria,   Edward Acquah 3 goals, friendly
***05/03/1961  Ghana 3-0 Mali: Edward Acquah                 Friendly
18/10/1962   Tangayika 2-6 Ghana     Edward Acquah, friendly
***11/10/1962Â Â Â Â Â Uganda 1-4 Ghana: Edward Acquah, Friendly
***30/09/1962Â Â Kenya 3-6 Ghana: Edward Acquah 3 goals, Friendly
30/04/1961 Ghana 2-2 Nigeria, Edward Acquah, African Nations Cup qualifiers
09/10/1960  Nigeria 0-3 Ghana    Edward Acquah 2 goals,  Nkrumah Cup
03/10/1960 Ghana 5-0 Mali: Edward Acquah, Nkrumah Cup
10/09/1960Â Â Â Â Nigeria 2-2 Ghana:Â Edward Acquah 2 goals, World Cup qualifier
28/08/1960 Â Â Â Â Ghana 4-1 Nigeria:Â Â Edward Acquah, World Cup qualifier
***3/07/1960 Â Â Ghana 2-2 Egypt: Edward Acquah, Friendly
***01/05/1960Â Â Togo 2-3 Ghana: Edward Acquah, Friendly
07/02/1960 Ghana 6-2 Sierra Leone    Edward Acquah 2 goals, W/A cup final,
06/12/1959    Ghana 2-0 Egypt              Edward Acquah 2 goals     Ogq
25/10/1959 Ghana 4-1 Nigeria  Edward Acquah 2 goals, Olympics Games Qualifier
***16/12/1956 Ghana 4-3 Sierra Leone: Edward Acquah 3 goals, Friendly
Note: *** This symbol in front of any game, represents goals gathered after further research.
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Ghana’s all time top scorers chart in international football-TOP 8
Edward Acquah and Kwasi Owusu- 40 goals
(3)Asamoah Gyan – 35 goals
Wilberforce Mfum- 28 goals
Osei Kofi                - 23 goals
Abedi Pele            -20 goals
Sulley Muntari -19 goals
(8) Tony Yeboah                            - 18 goals
Note: Baba Yara scored a total of 15 goals.
From Thomas Freeman N. Yeboah, Metro fm Sports