Majority of Ghanaians would find it extremely harder to forgive one man; and his name is Elvis Afriyie Ankrah.
The role he played as a former Minister for Youth and Sports intertwines with the abysmal performance that led to the early ousting of the Black Stars from the World Cup tournament in Brazil.
From snippets of information gathered, it can be concretely established that despite the presence of the former minister and deputy in Brazil, no authority acted to calm the nerves of players who had a bone to pick with some officials from the Ghana Football Association (GFA).
Ghana obtained just one point in Group G for the first time in the history of the competition after losing 2-1 to the Yankee Boys of the United States, drawing 2-2 with Germany and going down 1-2 to Portugal.
Ghana’s campaign at the 2014 FIFA World Cup has been described by many Ghanaians and sports pundits both in Ghana and on the world stage as worst since the Black Stars’ first participated for the first time in Germany 2006.
Shortly after his arrival, the former Minister for Youth and Sports apologized to the people of Ghana and the President for everything that happened in Brazil.
“I apologize to all Ghanaians for what happened and also for the behavior of the team both on the field and off the pitch. Many things happened therefore which I will give appropriate account at a right time, needless to say that I feel the pain and disappointment of Ghanaians”, he said.
“I would also like to apologize to the President because I promised him that we were going to make history and we couldn’t and therefore I have disappointed him, and I believe that the lesson we’ve learnt in Brazil will help us”, he added.
Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah and his Deputy Joseph Yamin were however removed from the Sports Ministry in the wake of the country’s disastrous outing at the 2014 World Cup.
The President, John Dramani Mahama took the decision just 48 hours after the country crashed out of the World Cup and chaos in the Stars Camp over the delay in paying players’ appearance fees which caused embarrassment to the country.
As to whether the entire nation would forgive him, only the heart and not the lips can answer.