There is an extent to which he’s right, and there’s an extent to which he’s wrong, because the problem with our local league is about more than just European football taking away fans.

There was a time when the local league was interesting and compelling. There was a time when Hearts and Kotoko were world class teams and fans relished the kind of football they put on when they played each other. There was a time when I could name the first eleven of Hearts of Oak if I was called straight from my sleep. There is no doubt things have worsened since.

After being re-elected to a third successive term at the GFA congress in Tamale, the FA President spoke on the poor standard of the local league. In his opinion, European football has taken too much attention from local football, from both fans and journalists, and contributed to the poor state of it.

“In 2011, attendances at the grounds was a challenge and the situation will remain so for some time because the European League have now taken over our media space. Ghanaian sports journalists and the fans have been colonised by the European leagues and so, the interest is more on those than African football. This will continue unless we all turn a new leaf and pay more attention to the domestic league.”

“We are going to introduce more marketing initiatives and engage more people in the marketing area. We are trying to devise ways to bring people to the stadium but clubs and the media need to be involved.”

Like mentioned earlier, he has a point but only to an extent. Playing standards have fallen, the pitches have gotten worse, we’re playing a league where up to the third placed team could go on relegation and the top team has a points average of less than two per game. Everything points towards a league that’s in terrible condition.

So whilst it is true that European football is taking away attention from the local league, at least to a degree, the problems are far deeper than that. And that is a failure on Kwesi Nyantakyi’s part, which they have to find a way of fixing. Talking about European soccer without any proper measures would do little to change things.