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| Letter From The President: Qualified to fail? |
10/14/2005 |
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Letter From The President: Qualified to fail?
Countrymen and women, loyalists and opponents,
I have chalked yet another first. Under my presidency the Black Stars have qualified to play in the World Cup for the first time in our nation’s history. Isn’t that exciting? Well, it is very exciting for me and I am very happy that I will be remembered as the excellent one who took the Black Stars to the World stage. Even Kwame Nkrumah couldn’t do it. Jerry Boom was a total mess. Where they failed, I have succeeded in grand style.
I must admit that initially I was very pessimistic about our chances of qualifying for the World Cup. But I don’t owe any apologies. You see, the Black Stars had broken my heart so many times and I had lost confidence in them. I knew that when I expected them to win, they would lose and when I expected them to lose they’d win. So my confidence in the team at the start of the qualifying series was at an all time low. And they kept proving me right. For example, when I expected them to beat Burkina Faso, they lost and, recently, when I expected them to lose to South Africa they won. I am happy, though, for the bottom line – we are there.
I have a feeling that my pessimism helped. It challenged the players to do something to please the president for once. They realized that their abysmal performances were affecting the president’s morale. An unhappy president tends to be a stupid president, they reckoned. The team also realized that it was not good for the president to lose confidence in them. Some of them came to me ‘nicodemously’ and vowed to do everything to restore my confidence in them and make me happy in the hopes that my happiness could make me a better leader. If I had not been so pessimistic, we wouldn’t have qualified. So in praising me for qualifying the Black Stars to the World Cup, please remember that I am a tough leader who expects nothing short of excellence from my followers and that those who take up the challenge will always receive multiple rewards. For qualifying for the World Cup, we are giving each member of the Black Stars 18 thousand dollars. It’s a lot of money – considering our HIPC status. Very few public servants in Sikaman earn that much. But that’s how I choose to reward those who please me. Those who choose to wallow in mediocrity do not get any attention from me.
Another secret to the Black Stars’ success is the air of freedom we are all breathing in Sikaman. The players told me that they did their best to qualify our country for the World Cup to reward me for expanding the frontiers of individual liberty, democracy and the rule of law. That’s not all. They also wanted to reward me for taking our country to HIPC and securing debt relief from the world’s richest countries. I know am a good president and I am glad that even footballers (who are usually not very educated) have recognized my efforts. I hope the NDC intellectuals will learn a lesson or two from the footballers.
As I bask in the success of the Black Stars, I must say that I am still pessimistic about the team’s chances in the World Cup tournament itself. I remain pessimistic because, as I said earlier, it challenges the team to prove me wrong and I am glad to be proved wrong. I also remain pessimistic because I fear that this ‘small’ success could blind the managers of the team and they could slide into complacency, which leads to ineptitude which opens the door to embarrassing failure.
I want the Black Stars and their managers and the whole nation to be aware that qualifying to play in the World Cup is not a big deal. We are happy we qualified. But we are not the first country to ever play in the tournament. In fact, many other African countries have gone before us. That’s not to say that we should not celebrate this “small” success. We should. But the earlier the celebrations end, the better. Qualifying to play in the tournament is not as important as how you play in the tournament. It’s like being the president of a country. Winning the election is quite an achievement but it is not as important as how you rule the country. That’s why I say that let’s not get intoxicated by the joy of qualifying. We should start worrying about the prospect of failure. We are going to play with the world’s best on the biggest stage in football. Just remember what the Under-17 boys (are they really?) did in Peru recently. They embarrassed themselves and our country by drawing all their matches in the group stages. I call them the “1-1 boys” because they seemed very comfortable with that score line. The Black Stars can’t go to Germany and do the same. In Germany next year, I think the whole nation expects the Black Stars to make an impact – make an attempt to win the cup, at least. They shouldn’t just go there to get counted as one of the teams playing in the tournament for the first time. I have taken the position that the team will not perform very well at the tournament. I am challenging the players and their managers to prove me wrong. If they are up to the challenge, I will give them a few tips.
The hard work begins now and planning is the key. I’ve heard it said before that “those fail to plan, plan to fail”. Lack of planning has been the bane of all our failures as a nation. Let’s use football to learn about the benefits of planning and we can transfer that to other national endeavours. Our boys are good. They need leadership and direction, which should come from the team managers. If the managers show that they are committed to good planning and they demonstrate wisdom, the players will fall in line and they will perform at the tournament. However, if our managers start using our qualification to the World Cup for visa racketeering and other money-making ventures, we will fail. Every team will wallop our boys and what would have been the point in qualifying? To flop? Let’s get to work NOW.
Sportingly yours,
J. A. Fukuor
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