Van der Pluijm said foreign players dominated Black Stars because the quality of the Ghana Premier League (GPL) is low compared to the foreign leagues.
By Kehinde Okeowo
Ahead of the World Cup playoff against the Super Eagles of Nigeria in March, former AshantiGold coach, Hans Van der Pluijm has explained why Black Stars gaffers overlook the local based players.
The 68-year-old tactician believes there are not enough talents in Ghana Premier League (GPL) to be considered for selection into the Black Stars and since each coach is expected to deliver, he is likely to focus on the foreign based players.
Black Stars managers are often criticised for relying on foreign based players to the detriment of their local counterparts when inviting players for international matches.
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Hans Van der Pluijm however justified the position of the coaches, while speaking on a popular Ghananian radio station, Vision 1 FM.
The former Berekum Chelsea Technical Director asserted that since coaches are expected to deliver results, they are likely to assemble the best Ghanaian talents available and the local players in the GPL do not have such quality.
He said, “I think that we all have to accept that the quality, in general, has gone down and you can attribute part of it to the covid which made it difficult for the players to train but I don’t think that there are enough top talents for the Black Stars from the Ghana Premier League.”
The Dutch coach went on to say it is not normal for most coaches to select the best players, he then advised the Black Stars technical crew to work with scouts in Ghana if they want to add a few local based players to the team.
“In my opinion, you have to select the best foreign players and get them ready to play for the national team and the technical bench will have to corporate with the teams in Ghana to be able to scout the few quality players in the Ghana Premier League,” he added.
