Local coaches need to be empowered

The Ingwe fraternity is still mourning the demise of our former coach Charles Kumi Gyamfi who succumbed to stroke last week in his native Ghana.

The late Gyamfi coached Ingwe between 1988 and 1991. The Ghanaian will go down as one of the most successful coaches Ingwe has ever heard alongside Ugandan Robert Kiberu and Englishman Graham Evans Williams who came before him.

It is during Gyamfi’s colorful stint that AFC Leopards finished the league unbeaten. Gyamfi, whose son Patrick also featured for Ingwe, albeit briefly, took us to the quarter finals of the then Africa Cup Winners Cup, later renamed the Nelson Mandela Cup.

Not only did Gyamfi excel at Ingwe, he remains the only coach to have won the Africa Cup of Nations three times with his native Ghana, a feat only emulated by Egyptian Ali Shehata. Gyamfi also remains the first African to play professional football on Europe.

So as Ghanians and the entire African continent mourn the passing of this great son of Africa, we at Ingwe must observe a minute of silence to remember this hero and pray that God rests his soul in peace.

And as we remember Gyamfi, we must also spare a moment of silence for our other coaches who have passed on including Kiberu, the man who won as three consecutive East and Central Africa club championships in the early eighties.

Another great former Ingwe coach who is now deceased is Malawian Reuben Malola who coached Leopards in the early to mid nineties.

It is the late Malola who recruited the likes of Kevin Ateku, Edward Karanja, Tom Juma, Wycliffe Jumba and the late John Lichuku.

As evidenced by the coaching styles of this great men, Ingwe seems to perform better with foreign coaches as opposed to our own locals.

This is enough reason why soccer authorities in this country must do a lot to empower our coaches with the skills and knowledge required to succeed at the highest level.

Without this, we will keep on relying on foreign coaches at both club level and with the national team.

So bad are things that even our mindset has been tuned to think that without a foreign coach, we can hardly achieve any success.

I am not by any chance downplaying the obvious abilities of the foreign coaches plying their trade in Kenya. The achievements of guys like Zdravko Logarusic, Frank Nuttal, Bobby Williamson, the late Reinhardt Fabisch, Luc Eymael, Jan Koops and many others are there for all of us to see.

All I am saying is that there is a very serious need for the mandarins at FKF to do something to empower our local coaches. RIP Gyamfi.