Former Black Stars right back John Painstil bemoans the standard of the Ghana Premier League, insisting the country local league is struggling.
The former West Ham defender, who returned to the country some few weeks ago after ending his stay with South African ABSA Premier League side Kaizer Chiefs was speaking to YFM’s “Trigmatic” on the Myd Morning Show where he indicated the standard of the league is falling.
“It used to be bigger than now,” he bemoaned when asked about the Ghana Premier League on YFM. “The league, I think has gone down.”
“And you know, the league goes down when the supporters or fans have given up on it and on their clubs.”
“Fans make football exciting because if you look at the South African league, the fans are making it more exciting.”
The Ghana Premier League has faced lots of criticism in the past few years with Clubs from the country failing to make an impact in Africa. The farthest any of the country’s clubs have gotten to in Continental championship in the three years has been in the preliminary stages.
Meanwhile, John Painstil, who played for Berekum Arsenals locally believes when the appropriate procedures are put in place the Ghana Premier League can get back to it’s feet.
“Fans want to got to the stadium to see good football, beautiful football and skillful players, and doing things that make them happy and scoring more goals in a game,”
“Back in the day when we used to play, with the likes of Sammy Kuffour, Emmanuel Kuffour, Charles Taylor, and Don Bortey, when they used to play for Hearts and Kotoko, you could see the league was intense, skillful players, high creative and lots of goals scoring, it was fun,”
“I think we need new Coaches, good players to improve the game,” he suggested. “Recently, i heard someone say when they go to the stadium to watch the GPL, every two minutes the ball goes to throw,” he joked.
“The fans wants excitement and we have to produce good players and more rotation.” he conclude.
John Painstil was a key member of the Ghana Black Stars team that qualified for the World Cup in 2006 in Germany. He played 98 times for the Black Stars.
He spent time in Israel and in England where he played for Hapoel Tel Aviv, West Ham, Fulham and Leicester City.
