Ghana's golden Black Queens deserve better treatment

Published on: 25 September 2015
Ghana's golden Black Queens deserve better treatment
Black Queens

By Ekow Asmah

Good is bad, and bad is good. Therefore, do bad. For, in doing bad, you will be doing good.

That seems to be the alternate universe some administrators at the sports ministry live in, having fallen from the windfall of prudence into the pitfall of extreme bankruptcy.

Yet, some, bankrupt, keep getting the carrot instead of the stick, on account of being a member of the elite few. No wonder the poverty of the majority, i.e. peasants, has become an acceptable casualty, for the perpetuation of the prosperity of the elite.

Riding on their high horse, their heads way up in the clouds, they cannot have an ear to the ground to know, feel and fulfil the needs, concerns and benefits of peasant athletes such as the Black Queens, Ghana’s senior women's football team, who have dug in their heels, demanding their due, instead of accepting short change.

The Black Queens exerted their supremacy over their Camerounian nemesis in the final of the All Africa Games football competition, giving Ghana one of her two gold medals, among a host of other medals totaling 19, at the Brazzaville Games.

Instead of getting their due, these glorious athletes, hoping make at least $9,000, apiece — as they earned for the silver they won at the Maputo 2011 Games — for berthing in the final, were offered a mere $2,000, apiece.

That is not even to state that the Black Queens deserve an official package from the state, as it did for Martha Bissah when she won gold at the 2014 World Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China.

Even the men's team, Black Stars, after fumbling a chance to win it all at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON 2015) in Equatorial Guinea, were each player was given hefty ‘losing bonus’ of $25,000, in addition to one Jeep Grand Cherokee.

We might as well pay our Golden Girls homage and give them Mercedes-Benz S-Class or Range Rovers or Beemers (BMW) as commendation, for they are certainly more beautiful and more precious than those things.

Oh, it is too much to ask? Well, have they not done better than their male counterparts, Black Meteors, who could not even sniff the medal zone, as well as the Black Stars, on the continent this year?

Besides treating our ladies as the Queens they are, let us pay them all that is due them, including their outstanding $12,000 qualification bonus for making it to the Brazil 2016 Olympics and that of the All Africa Games.

Until that happens, I am of the opinion that the Minister of Youth and Sports, Dr Mustapha Ahmed and his deputy, Vincent Oppong-Asamoah, should not be paid for presiding over such double standards and sheer injustice.

That would serve as a powerful model of a true-blue leadership from the top-down. I hope the penny has dropped and that, finally, we would attain the civility, humility and the wisdom to treat our Black Queens with more dignity and equality.

The Black Queens should be ignored no more, definitely treated on equal footing as their male counterparts, entitled to equal share of the spoils of the national booty.

Our Golden Queens, until you receive all that is due you, remember that we love you dearly and will keep fighting for you.

We are ever grateful for your feet, which I hope you would continue to cherish those memories, everlasting in your spirits.

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