The General Secretary of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) Prosper Harrison Addo has defended the decision to hire Otto Addo to lead the Black Stars as coach to the 2022 World Cup.
The former Ghana international having already served as an assistant coach under Milovan Rajevac was given the nod to lead a four-member technical team which were tasked to qualify Ghana for the World Cup by beating Nigeria in the playoff of the qualifiers.
Otto Addo was chosen to continue with the team that was competing on the world stage for the fourth time after qualifying. However, like the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), Ghana failed to advance past the group stage, falling to familiar rivals Uruguay in their third match, prompting the Borussia Dortmund coach to leave his position.
Harrison Addo however justified the decision, citing that it was Otto Addo’s brilliance that got Ghana over the line against Nigeria to make it to Qatar for the World Cup eventually.
“He is the same coach who qualified us to the World Cup.”
This video of Black Stars players paying homage to Otto Addo paps pic.twitter.com/yoIWLBFAB2
— Michael Oti Adjei (@OtiAdjei) March 30, 2022
“Coaching a national team is different from a club team and Mourinho has even explained this in an interview. You have your players with you all the time as a club team coach but it is not so with the national team.
“As a national team coach you do your job in between the international windows and no one can convince me Otto Addo didn’t do it.
“I don’t get the term that Otto Addo was a part-time coach,” he told Asempa FM.
Chris Hughton, who served as the team’s Technical Advisor during Otto Addo’s reign, was appointed to take over in March and has already taken charge of two matches in the 2023 AFCON qualifiers.
