FEATURED: Accra Lions; Lothar Matthäus’ Investment into Ghana Football

In the early hours of this morning, May,23,2023, news went rife that, former FIFA World Player of the Year and World Cup winner, Lothar Matthaus, had acquired majority shares in Ghana Premier League side, Accra Lions.



In fact, the German was not the only investor in this groundbreaking deal, it was disclosed that he did this together with other notable names, football agent, Oliver König from Frankfurt and Ghanaian footballer, Frank Acheampong.

I was particularly enthused with this blockbuster deal, to me, I knew this was the beginning of great things for the Accra-based club and Ghana Football. 

In this piece, I enumerate how this new deal could positively sway the fortunes of these young players at the club, the club’s position in the country, and on a global scale. 



FINANCIAL INJECTION 

Football over the last few years has always been driven by cash or financial injection. Clubs in the country and beyond have relied heavily on the inflow of cash from bankrollers, financiers, investors, and stakeholders to sustain the running and administration of clubs, when, the cash runs low it has rippling effects on the club, its performance on the pitch and its overall outlook. I look at this new deal with a positive smile on my face knowing that, a host of things will change, the club will have the needed financial injection to purchase players from rival clubs or lower division clubs to properly groom them for the task ahead. 

PLAYER DEVELOPMENT

A host of clubs in the Ghana Premier League have always been faced with a gap in talent. Most often than not, when player sales occur, injuries or suspension, they begin to crumble under the pressure but in the past two years, that I have seen, Accra Lions in the Ghana Premier League, I have been wowed by how impressive they play their football. It aids you to understand that, there is a blueprint or model that these young ones under the tutelage of coach Ibrahim Tanko and his technical team adhere to which is clearly paying off huge dividends. Most recently, they beat, Aduana Stars by three unanswered goals, which drew plaudits from a host of persons in the football fraternity. It was a pleasing sight to behold, now, with this new development it stands a chance of seeing the club inculcate modern football techniques into its setup moving forward. 



TRANSFER OF PLAYERS 

The dream of every footballer in the country is to travel overseas, get a good club to progress his development, make a name for himself, win trophies if possible, get an international call-up if possible, remit parents, family, guardians, friends, and host of other dependents. But all these don’t come on a silver platter, it takes a host of sacrifices to make these happen but in recent times, we have seen Ghanaian players leave the shores of the country accepting deals from Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea, Latvia, India, Moldova but largely, you can’t fault these guys for choosing to pursue greener pastures. 

In one of Lothar Matthaus’ interviews, he opined that it was a way of giving back to the community. “We want to bring young players to Europe; on a serious path and already well trained. That’s why investments are also made here in the training area” he ended. 

READ: Lothar Matthäus: The GFA approached me for Black Stars coaching role

This takes me to WAFA SC and Right to Dream Academy, which has become a good hub for nurturing, developing, and transferring players abroad, Yaw Yeboah, Kudus Mohammed, Kamaldeen Sulemana, Godsway Donyoh, Forson Amankwah, Lawrence Agyekum, Michael Tetteh, Thomas Agyapong, Michael Zuo and others, have become beneficiaries of this great initiative as such I have no doubt in my mind that, Dominic Nsobilla, Abass Samari Salifu, Baba Salifu Apiiga, Evans Botchway, Mohammed Shawkan, Dominic Amponsah, Seidu Basit and others will tow that path to Germany and other countries soon.



TRAINING INFRASTRUCTURE

Another area of focus will be to bolster the current training infrastructure which will ensure that players receive excellent preparation prior to securing moves abroad. The massive loop in training infrastructure has become a serious conundrum for clubs and their players. A host of clubs in the country cannot boast of their own training pitches to talk of football pitches for players to play on game days, it’s sad when teams hop from one training pitch to the other to prepare ahead of game days but with this new partnership, I can only hope, the Accra based club will soon get a World class infrastructure to properly train the bunch of talent they have at their disposal prior to foreign moves. 

Hopefully, this new partnership will move in the direction it’s been envisioned as there are many acquisitions that particularly didn’t turn out the way it was expected.