Ghana's football has been marred by a string of failed qualification campaigns across senior, women's, youth, and Olympic football since Kurt Okraku took office as Ghana Football Association (GFA) president in October 2019. A review of major tournaments missed under Okraku's leadership has fuelled calls for accountability. The Black Stars, Ghana's senior men's team, sit winless and without a head coach in their 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying campaign.
The setbacks began early in Okraku's tenure, with both Ghana's men's and women's teams missing the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and the Paris 2024 Olympics. The men's side's Paris 2024 absence extended a drought stretching back to 2004, the last time Ghana's senior men's team appeared at the Olympics. The GFA had entered the 2023 U-23 AFCON qualification cycle with an explicit goal of ending that 19-year gap but fell short again.
Ghana's youth sides have struggled to maintain the pipeline that once made the country a continental powerhouse. The Black Starlets missed the 2023 U-17 AFCON after a 1-0 semi-final loss to Burkina Faso in the WAFU Zone B qualifiers. The Black Satellites, Ghana's U-20 side and winners of the competition in 2021, missed the 2023 U-20 AFCON entirely, also missing the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
The Black Queens, Ghana's senior women's team, missed the 2022 Women's AFCON. The most significant blow came when the Black Stars failed to qualify for the 2025 AFCON, finishing bottom of their qualifying group with just three points and no wins from six matches. This marked Ghana's first absence from the tournament since 2004.
The Black Galaxies, Ghana's home-based national team, added to the disappointments by missing the 2025 CHAN after a 3-1 aggregate defeat to Nigeria in the final qualifying round. The accumulated record of missed tournaments has raised questions about the direction of Ghanaian football under Okraku's leadership.
The Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG) has publicly voiced concerns about the team's results, pointing to the need for GFA leadership to either reverse the decline or make way for others. The pressure on GFA leadership is mounting, with both sports journalists and a documented record of missed tournaments feeding into the debate over whether change is needed at the top of Ghanaian football administration.
The repeated failures across men's, women's, and youth categories raise questions about whether the issues are confined to the senior team or reflect broader structural problems within Ghana's football development system. The uncertainty over who will lead the team, combined with the winless start, has deepened questions about the direction of Ghanaian football under Okraku's leadership.
Key points
- The GFA presidency has been under scrutiny due to multiple tournament misses.
- Ghana's national teams have missed several major tournaments, including the Olympics and AFCON.
- The Sports Writers Association of Ghana has called for accountability in the GFA leadership.
