Ghana's president didn't mince words. John Dramani Mahama sat down with representatives from Medeama Sporting Club, Nations FC, and Ampem Darkoa at the Jubilee House on September 8, 2026 — and he came with questions the GFA probably wasn't thrilled to answer.
"We used to have a very good colts league; I don't know what happened to it," Mahama said. Then, turning directly to a GFA representative: "So, our FA, what happened to our Colts League? Are you going to resuscitate the Colts League?"
That's not a gentle policy suggestion. That's a sitting head of state publicly holding football's governing body to account in front of club officials.
The real cost of dismantling grassroots football
The colts system was historically Ghana's entry point — the ladder young players climbed before anyone with a clipboard noticed them. Strip that away and you don't just lose a competition, you lose an entire layer of the talent discovery process. Kids who might have been spotted at 12 or 13 simply fall through the gap.
Mahama also raised a separate but connected concern: Ghana moves too fast to sell its young players. The moment a scout shows interest, clubs and agents push players abroad before they've had any real exposure to senior domestic football or the national setup. The pipeline doesn't just need fixing at the bottom — it's leaking in the middle too.
His proposed fix is straightforward: keep emerging talents in the local league longer, run them through the national team structure at junior and senior level, build their value and their game before exporting them.
What this means for Ghanaian football's competitive picture
Ghana has been cycling through national team rebuilds for years, consistently relying on diaspora players or talents developed entirely abroad. A revived grassroots system wouldn't fix that overnight — but without one, it's hard to see how the domestic game produces anything other than raw, unpolished players being sold before their development is complete.
Whether the GFA actually answers Mahama's question with action rather than a press release is another matter entirely. The president asked publicly. The response — or lack of one — will be equally public.
