He won a crucial game against a traditionally difficult opponent, a neighbor, only to be sacked the day after.

Together with Uganda, Ghana are joint leaders of Group E in the CAN 2015 Nations Cup qualifier in Morocco but that is not good enough any way.

It appears to me a messy style sack of Akwasi Appiah, a man whose achievements were written at the beachside only to be swept away by the tidal waves but whose weaknesses, failures were recorded in Hieroglyphs on the temple walls of the Football Association and carved in gold by some hypocritical FA officials.

 I write this piece on a night when the media landscape is saturated with the report of the sack but with no official confirmation or reason for it.

And in all the reports, the chorus has been that the "decision to sack Appiah will officially be communicated to him, Friday."

And while I do not have any reason to doubt the many media reports, I have to tread cautiously because it is the Ghana FA we are dealing with - an Association, that is fast turning out to be increasingly inconsistent and dramatically incoherent.

If the sack is confirmed as widely reported on Friday, the FA will add to its CV as one of the most irreverent Associations who do not even show courtesy to the men they appoint, the men who served the nation with passion.

I am a journalist and I know too well that journalists have a habit of intercepting information from anywhere, even including the presidency but I also do know that such information are also given out or leaked by a willing agent for different reasons.

If at all Appiah had to bow out, he had to be shown some respect and dignity.

That he will hear the news of the sack from the media and be told to get in touch with the FA for his severance package the following morning was hanging a man out to dry and the FA could not and should not have done that.

But can we expect any less from the FA who would today sing a glowing song of confidence in Coach Akwasi Appiah only to undermine him tomorrow with a three man committee to hunt for his technical advisor?

Incidentally, a member of the committee Coach Oti Akhenten is himself a technical advisor to the FA. Were we to have two technical advisors and a coach of the Black Stars at the same time?

It was clear that the rather bizarre head coach, technical advisor arrangement was a wet dream, a pathetic afterthought by the FA which was never going to work.

It was raised by the FA, discussed by them and imposed on Kwasi Appiah as part of a grand plot to sack the man. I felt he should have resigned in the face of this obvious assault on his intelligence but he stayed on only to tell the world he had nothing to do with the decision to appoint a technical advisor.

That singular comment from the silent killer, as Appiah is affectionately called by the players, appears to be the loudest word that broke the camel's back.

I heard an imaginary FA member whisper into my ears "Look at you, we were rather tolerating you for the time being and you have the guts to expose us like that. We shall see where power lies?"

With that power, venomously demonstrated by the Executive Council of the FA, Appiah will be taking his severance package hopefully on Friday.

And oo the faceless man, woman who leaked the information about Appiah's sack to the media did quite a good job on that.

He never left the media in a ledge. He/She provided the succession plan the FA had adopted and it turns out that Milovan Rajevac was taking over from his former assistant. The technical advisor role was at best a hoax and at worse an untidy distraction of a technical team busy praying, playing and hoping to qualify Ghana to Morocco 2015.

Doesn't that sum up the sad story of coach Kwesi Appiah's adventure as coach of the Black Stars? That the FA and its management committee whose duty it is to manage issues tend to mismanage them and expect Kwasi Appiah to work miracles.

It is no secret that the performance of Ghana at the Brazil 2014 is chiefly the reason for the dismissal of Appiah.

But if Appiah failed in Brazil and has to be sacked, he must go with Nyantakyi and even to a larger extent President John Mahama.

The issues that led to Ghana's embarrassing exit from the World Cup in Brazil had more to do with a poorly managed financial transaction which was well beyond the purview of Coach Appiah but which incurably dealt a heavy blow on the pitch.

If the Black Stars failed to train on two occasions ahead of a cliffhanger against Portugal because the government, the FA had reneged on their promises to pay the players their due why punish the coach if the team fails to win?

I am first to admit that Appiah made some mistakes in the game against the US but he quickly corrected them in the game against Germany and had just Portugal to beat. It was a task well within the reach of the Stars but the unnecessary distraction some of which were self-inflicted by the players themselves ensured Ghana's dream was prematurely aborted.

Ghana did not have half the quality of Spain (the World Champion) at the World Cup and yet they did not sack their coach who presided over such a colossal embarrassment on the pitch not off it. England has not done same, have they, despite crashing out from the first round.

Is it not funny that all the victories chalked by Appiah had either been attributed to luck or a weaker opposition? And yet he had been called technically bankrupt in times of defeat? 

After all was said and done in Brazil, Ghana had to play Uganda in a Nations Cup qualifier in Kumasi. It was an image redemption match for the Stars which meant everybody- the players, the coach the FA had to be in cloud nine.

And what happened? The press conference held two days to such an important game turned out to be another disaster. Did the FA anticipate probing questions from the journalists? Were the players competently coached on what responses to give to these questions? And like a good friend harmlessly suggested, did the FA even attempt to plant people who would ask questions whose answers had been rehearsed by the players before coming for the press conference? Desperate times call for desperate measures. But no. Given the result of what transpired at that press conference it appeared to me the players-Dede Ayew and Asamoah Gyan were left on their own to give Ghanaians a lecture on what players do with their money and why they deserved to be paid their due when they play for the Black Stars

To be frank I perfectly agree with them, even if they came across as being arrogant. But was that the right platform? Was that the right time? Obviously no. They made the unforgiving Ghanaians angry all the more. And oo another journalist also decided to expand the frontiers of democracy by asking if Gyan can confirm or deny sacrificing Castro? Really? Sacrifice? We all know what happened after that...

There was an attempted assault soon after the press conference. There was assault just a day to the game. On the day of the game, there were reports the skipper of the side wanted to leave camp to go bail his brother who had been arrested for assault. Where was the FA and its management team in all this?

The fans were angry and cursing. Some went to the stadium hooting and lashing at their own team. They were praying for a Ghana defeat.

Under such circumstances only a miracle can give a coach victory. Kwasi Appiah didn't have that miracle. He came through with a point, even if the penalty that was awarded against Uganda was a soft one.

He was hounded and threatened to win against Togo or kiss his career good bye. He proved his critics wrong and with the support of his skipper and the entire players they chalked a superb sweet victory against Togo.

But it appears a decision had been made already. He had to go at all cost no matter what happened.

I look back at Appiah's tenure and I dare say his records in terms of statistics, games played, games won, games drawn and the ones lost and goals scored and conceded were far more impressive in two years than his former boss who now takes over.

He is not bowing out to a superior candidate. He is bowing out to one, who is just as ordinary. The only difference is, he is coming from Serbia and will be better remunerated.

I have heard from some close sources that some of the players were not happy with the training regimes of Coach Kwasi Appiah. I will not doubt that. But I will not also believe all the players were happy with Rajevac during his first coming neither will all of them be happy with his second coming.

Every cooach may have a peculiar strength and weakness. Rajevac's strength maybe to instill discipline and be very tactical. Appiah's was to discover hidden talents and make them instant hits. Rabiu, Waris, Wakasu, Atsu are only to name but a few. Rajevac was a one goal project executioner; Appiah believed in goal harvest and in total football; If results are the yardstick to measure the success of a coach, Appiah's was better. These are the facts.

 I do not like these Serbians but I won't hate the Black Stars because of Rajevac. But if the management committee of the FA will continuously mismanage serious issues like the ones outlined here and expect a miracle from Rajevac then we better go to Serbia in search of a replacement.

 

The Writer is an Assisting Editor at Myjoyonline.com. You can contact him at nathan.gadugah@myjoyonline.com