“How can we be so over-reliant on IMF players at the youth level?” – Agyemang Badu after Ghana’s poor display at U-23 Afcon

Former Ghana International Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu believes that football in the country is in serious trouble if the local league can’t produce quality talents at the youth level to perform creditably at major tournaments.

Ghana has qualified for almost every major tournament in men’s football in the last four years, but the outcome leaves much to be desired, calling for huge criticism from the football fraternity locally.

According to Badu, the local league in Ghana should be able to generate quality players to compete at the highest levels.

He insisted that the inability of the local league to produce enough quality at the youth level means that Ghana’s football is in a mess.

“How can we be so over-reliant on IMF (foreign-born and foreign-based) players at the youth level? If the local league can’t produce players for our youth football, then we’re in serious trouble”, he told Joy Sports in an interview.

Badu took the final penalty that handed Ghana’s Black Starlets and Africa the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup trophy against Brazil.

He featured at the 2010 and 2015 Africa Cup of Nations finals, where Ghana lost to Egypt and Ivory Coast, respectively.