Sports and Recreation Minister Kofi Adams has called for a scientific and clearly structured player development pathway in Ghana, arguing that the country must move away from periodic selection exercises and establish a system capable of tracking talented players from the grassroots to the senior national teams.

Speaking at the Ghana Football Association’s 32nd Ordinary Congress on Thursday, August 20, at Prampram, the Buem MP said the success of Ghana’s football development system should be measured by its ability to identify the best young talents at an early age and monitor their progress through the various stages of the football pyramid.

“If I ask for the best 30 players in Ghana at U-13 today, can we identify them? Can we tell who will progress to U-15, to U-17, Division 1, the Premier League, and eventually our national teams?” he questioned.

“Can we tell who will drop out and why? We need to be able to have this.”

According to Mr Adams, the inability to scientifically track players through the different stages of their development is an indication that Ghana has yet to establish a comprehensive development pathway.

“If we cannot answer these questions scientifically, then we do not yet have a development pathway. We have a selection exercise,” he said.

The minister believes the distinction is crucial because identifying players for a particular competition or age-group team is only one part of football development.

A sustainable system, he argues, must continuously monitor players, assess their progress and provide them with the appropriate environment to develop.

“We don’t want to have a selection exercise. We want to have a development pathway.”

The proposed approach would require stronger coordination between grassroots football, academies, clubs, the various youth national teams and the senior national sides. Rather than talented players being identified only when national teams are preparing for competitions, their development would be monitored over several years.

Such a system could also help Ghana better understand why some players who excel at youth level fail to progress into professional football, while others successfully transition into the Premier League, Division One and eventually the Black Stars.

Mr Adams said a document outlining the proposed development structure has already been prepared and urged stakeholders to focus on implementing it effectively.

“That is why the document I read, what has been put together, let’s make sure we work as seriously to implement it.”

He believes implementation of the framework would provide Ghana with the foundation needed to move from short-term talent selection to long-term player development.

“Because once we do that, we’ll be able to complete this and have a development pathway, not a selection exercise.”