Ransford Osei, a former striker for Ghana, has pledged to do all in his power to keep his son from representing his nation.
Simply put, Ransford Osei has expressed his intention to prevent any of his children from participating in what he believes to be a corrupt system if they wind up becoming football players.
The former U-17 forward said his exclusion from the Black Stars was brought on by the behavior of a person, whose name he refused to reveal.
Ransford Osei, infuriated, said that whereas players in European nations received the necessary assistance to improve their skills, Ghanaian athletes were left to fight for themselves after the 2007 U-17 World Cup.
As a father, he said, it is his duty to stop his kid from falling prey to a system that he believes stifles creativity.
“If I’m ever getting back into football then it’s probably because my son would turn a footballer and I’d be his agent. That’s the only association I’d want to have with football. If my son becomes a footballer, I will never allow him to play for any Ghanaian national team. I’m being real. I’m no longer playing active football so I can say it.
“Something happened during playing days and because of that, I did not receive any Black Stars call-up. Someone did something that courted my hatred in the face of some big men in football.
“In Ghana, being good alone is not enough to get you to the top and that’s the difference between African and whites. The white man will give you all the push when he realizes that you are talented but Africans will not do that.
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“We played with Bojan Kirkic who was then in the Barcelona academy, Toni Kroos was at Bayern Munich, and a lot of them. After the tournament, they were given the platform to shine but we have to struggle for ourselves.
“Over here, the belief is that we have talent in abundance so if you don’t bribe someone you won’t be allowed to progress so why would I allow my son to go through this system,” he said.
When Osei played for Ghana at the U-17 level in 2007, the Black Starlets finished third in the U-17 African Youth Championship thanks in large part to his contributions.
With six goals, he finished the competition with the silver boot. He then repeated the feat in the 2009 U-20 AFCON, scoring seven goals to earn the golden boot as Ghana won the tournament—the first for an African nation.
