Grant earns $1.2m but shows poor results

• Posted on November 14, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

THE coach of the senior national football team, Avran Grant, has earned over $1million in salaries since his appointment two years ago but only has disappointing results to show for it.

Mr Grant is on a reported monthly wage of $50,000 (Fifty Thousand Dollars).

The amount, which is the equivalent of GHc4million (40 billion old Cedis) is the highest paid to any Black Stars coach in the history of Ghana, a country under International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to fix an economy in crisis.

However, the coach has guided Ghana to achieve the worst result in recent memory of the senior national football team.

The Israeli trainer has failed to live up to expectation as Ghana’s chances of qualifying to football most prestigious tournament is in doubt after losing to Egypt in Alexandria in match day two of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

Avram who is on a monthly wage of US$50,000 since his appointment in November 2014, has performed poorly in the World Cup qualifiers compared to previous coaches of the Black Stars, such as Kwesi Appiah, Milovan Rajevac and Ratomir Djukovic who were even paid less but managed to qualify Ghana to the World Cup.

For the 24 months that Avram Grant has coached Ghana, he has earned a total of $1.2 million. He has three months remaining on his current contract, which ends in February 2017 after the AFCON.

At the end of his contract, Mr Grant would earn $1.35 million.

Kwesi Appiah qualified Ghana to the 2014 FIFA World Cup with a salary of $25,000 per month and yet still had a team with a lot more competition than what Grant has now.

Ghana has played five games without a win and this has been one of the worst performances by the Black Stars in recent times. Before yesterday’s game against Egypt, Ghana had played Rwanda (1-1), lost 1-0 to Russia, drew 0-0 with Uganda and drew 1-1 with South Africa.

The Stars are currently third in Group E with just one point after two matches. Uganda are second with four points.

Ghana’s chances of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to be staged in Russia, has now been hit by a big blow as Egypt have opened a five-point gap leading the table with six points.

Avram Grant since his appointment has come under a lot of criticism from the media and football fans as well as some administrators.

Some of the criticism against him include his failure to monitor the local league, failure to give technical assistance to the various national teams, does not even stay in the country, and describes the standard of the local league as poor and a lot more.

The coach has come to respond to his critics saying he is always out of the country because the standard of the league is low and is always monitoring players abroad.

From the sponsorship deal of $3million per year by Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC) for three years, Grant takes $600,000 per year as salary paid by the sponsors and yet still has failed to secure a comfortable spot for the Black Stars in the World Cup qualifiers.

Avram Grant will go in the history of Ghana football as one of the best paid coaches of the senior national football team and will also be the coach not to have qualified Ghana for the World Cup in recent times if the team fails to top the group.

By Herbert BOAKYE-YIADOM, Accra