CAPACITY BUILDING 💪🏾

The “biggest” capacity building to ever happen in football in the Northern Region was organised by the Northern Regional Football Association (NRFA) at the Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium in Tamale. The event that took place on Tuesday, January 26th, 2021, was put together to equip the executives of the various District Football Associations (DFA), with the necessary skills to run their associations.

The NRFA chairman, Alhaji Abu Hassan Rhyzo, was the chairman of the event. Some of the speakers were, Prosper Harrison, General Secretary, Ghana Football Association (GFA), Neil Amstrong, owner of Krypton Global and former National Chapters Committee (NCC) chairman of Accra Hearts of Oak, and Micheal Oti Adjei of TV3.

Mr. Rhyzo gave his opening remarks and spoke on how he intends to build the region’s fooball through various capacity building events. He then said, “over the last ten years, this is the biggest event in terms of capacity building”.

He concluded his introductory remarks by saying “social media marketing is very important”, and urged the various executives to take advantage of it.

The General Secretary of the GFA, Prosper Harrison, took his turn and said, “it is the desire of the GFA to bring such events to our base”. Mr. Afriyie went ahead and stressed on the fact that a strong base makes things easier.

He also made known the fact that the days of Peter Amewu, the late, which use to be paper work alone has now quickly changed to IT.

Neil Amstrong Mortagbe, gave a lecture on how to manage the ‘little’ resources we have. He said, “everytime we are asked why we are struggling, we blame the FA, but a lot of the time it is us. We think too much about what we don’t have, rather than what we have”.

“You cannot fight nature, so package nature in a way you can enjoy it”.

Neil went ahead and gave a funny example about how he turned what was supposed to be bad to good. He said when he was teased about his bald head, he took it in good faith and turned it around. People no longer saw Neil the “bald boy”, but Neil the intelligent man. He then said we shouldn’t make noise about what we don’t have, rather we should make the most out of what we have.

Neil continued by saying, “your customers are your prospective donors and sponsors”. “What do I have?, is the first thing you must answer in markerting.”. “Treat your footballers like customers”. “Honouring” what we have is the way to go. Neil stressed on the fact that football was created as a vehicle for development.

He spoke about repecting structures and solving issues internally. “Together we can get football to be a profitable sport for all.”

How to know what you have is by thinking deep and asking yourself hard questions. The things you are not supposed to say in normal life, don’t say them on social media. The same liabilities are carried around both. Neil concluded.

Michael Oti Agjei of TV3 spoke on, “SOCIAL MEDIA, A MUST FOR FOOTBALL CLUBS”. He said you need to know that social media is the place you get a significant number of your fans. “This is a place where the biggest conversation in the world is happening at the moment”. There are about 40 million phones in Ghana and 6 million of those phones are “hooked onto the internet”.

Every major company in Ghana is diverting it’s attention to social media. Facebook has 5 million Ghanaians hooked on. With all these numbers, it means you have all your fans sitting there and ready to engage. Oti said, “Your market is sitting there already, so it’s up to you to design your message”.

In these spaces there are big spenders. Social media gives you the power to determine what people say about you. You can set agenda’s on social media. As a club you should be talking to your fanbase almost always. Create the presence, no matter how “small you are.”

Michael went ahead and said, “Twitter is where I basically call a football paradise. As a club, you must have a Twitter account.” Social media can make you a bigger club. You must plan and prepare for everything depending on your capacity. The posts that get the most likes are the ones with pics. You have to strive to understand how each media (Facebook, Twitter, Intagram…) works.

It’s easy to identify your top fans through likes and comments. “Amplify your posts by contacting people with more following to help share or pay to get it sent across”. “Follow the lead of some of the big clubs in the world and see how they use their social media”.

He stressed on using “emocations”, saying it helps “spice” the post. “A bit more images, less text.” Utilise what you have as much as you possible. With only your phone, you can make your club bigger.

Mr. Hassan Ryzo gave his closing remarks and the conference ended.