Veteran coach J.E Sarpong has lauded the appointment of the decision of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) over the appointment of Bernhard Lippert as new Technical Director.
Bernhard Lippert who is a Greman trainer has this week been named the Francis Oti-Akenteng’s successor. The 58-year-old is a FIFA expert in instructing and training coaches and coach trainers.
Reacting to Lippert’s appointment, Sarpong called on Ghanaians to rally behind the former head coach of Eintracht Frankfurt to take the nation’s football to the next level.
Before the GFA confirmed the German as the new Technical Director, many stakeholders were calling for the country’s football governing body to name a one of their own to replace Oti-Akenteng.
But, J.E Sarpong said he supports the decision the Executive Council of the GFA took.
“I don’t have any qualms with the GFA appointing a white-man as the Technical Director. We are in dynamic world so I if you believe someone can do the work for you, you need to hire him irrespective of his race,” he told Asempa FM.
“For me, I think it’s a step in the right direction.”
The GFA last year launched a campaign #BringBackTheLove aimed at igniting passion and galvanising support for the Black Stars and Sarpong said maybe the German as the charm to win Ghanaians support for the various national teams.
“Let’s support him to move our football forward. Maybe he will #bringbackthelove more than we need.”
Bernhard Lippert on Monday, October 5 was appointed as Technical Director of the Ghana Football Association for a period of two years.
The 58-year-old German trainer is a FIFA expert in instructing and training coaches and coach trainers.
Until this appointment, Lippert was Technical Director of the Associations of Football Federations of Azerbaijan (AFFA), a position he’s occupied for 12 years(2008-20).
He was also the Head Coach of Azerbaijan’s U17, U19 and U21 National teams and he played a vital role in qualifying Azerbaijan for the first time in the country’s history to the Elite round of their respective European competitions.
He also achieved the best result with the U21 in the history of the country during the European qualifiers.
Lippert was Head Coach of Eintracht Frankfurt between 1998-99 where he also served as Assistant coach, Youth Education Supervisor and Head Coach of Eintracht Frankfurt U23 at different occasions.
At Eintracht Frankfurt, he trained and developed over 20 players in the youth system of the club to become regular players in the Bundesliga.
At the early stages of his coaching career, he had brief coaching stints with German football giants Bayern Munich, English side Leeds United and Spanish club, .
As Technical Director of the Ghana FA, he will head the Technical Directorate and formulate guidelines, strategies and policies for the training and the technical development of coaches of Ghana football, to provide advice to the Executive Council on coaching and technical development matters in general and the supervision of national football team coaches, to which the Technical Director may be assigned by the Association.
Bernhard Lippert will be responsible for the strategy, development and technical direction of the Technical Directorate, the preparation and implementation of technical programmes at the grassroots, juvenile, and National Teams thereby preparing football coaches and footballers for the future.
He shall be required to build the capacity of the of Technical Directorate of the Association that will include but not limited to the following departments; Coach Education, Referee Education, Talent Identification, Performance Analysis, Technical Studies and Video Analysis, Health and Nutrition, Sports Psychology, Strength and Conditioning and Sports Medicine.
As part of his functions, the Technical Director will arrange courses and conferences for Match Officials, Team Officials, Instructors, Trainers and Administrators.
He is also expected to assess the training programme of the National Teams, examine Reports on players made by the Handlers (Team Managers, Coaches and the Welfare Officers), analyse International Matches and advise the Association.
The former footballer and highly respected coaches’ trainer is fluent in English, Spanish and German.
