Search icon

Football

25th Jun 2015

Ghana threw some stupid money at the 2014 World Cup – including 100 grand for a ball boy

Crazy

Conan Doherty

When you spend big, you better be able to back it up.

Ghana couldn’t. And it’s all coming out now.

The African football outfit is seeing its dirty laundry being aired in public through the Dzamefe Report – a 396-page dossier (at ease, Louis) that’s investigating their poor performance at the 2014 World Cup.

The Black Stars managed just one point in Brazil – a bloody draw with the eventual champions that no-one seems to care about – and answers are surfacing about where all the money went that the country threw at the campaign.

Easy explanation: they just spent six-figure sums on equipment officers and massages and psychologists and the like. Where else?

The report, released this evening on the BBC, shows the sort of crazy money that went into a campaign that ended at the qualifiers.

Ghana paid Ismail Hamidu $100,000 to be their ‘ball boy’. He was their equipment officer too but the role was also described as ball boy. 89,000 euro to be a ball boy for three games.

Here’s some the spending:

_83865602_ghanareport

That’s a lot of money but, in fairness, they were in a group with Germany, USA and Portugal. Give them a break. Was a report really necessary?

Perhaps, if they’re going to keep spending like that.

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10

Topics:

Ghana