“You always have to be alert,” says goalkeeper Sayuti Alhassan, looking smart in his blue boots and dark gloves. “You know you’re lacking on one side. You can dive and save the ball when it’s played to your strong hand. On the other side, if you don’t act quickly, you concede.”
Like many children from Ghana, Sayuti fell in love with football from infancy. He used to kick around the house kicking any object he saw, which forced his parents to buy him a ball as soon as he could take his first steps.
But all that effervescence and excitement died down when Sayuti was approaching his 4th birthday. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP), the most common childhood motor disability, which affects a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture. He subsequently lost the use of his left arm and leg.
Throughout his time at school, Sayuti was considered “sick” by his friends and teachers. His parents also forbade him any physical activity for fear of escalating his condition and, according to him, “never spared me when they caught me playing”.
But Sayuti’s dream of becoming a footballer would be revived by the chance sighting of a physically challenged athlete. “I saw a goalkeeper of a team of amputees and realized that he only used one hand,” he told DW.
“That’s when I knew I could do it too. I started playing again. When I found out there was a CP soccer team around, I decided to join.”
Cerebral palsy club offers hope
Sayuti is now one of 30 players signed up for the Ayawaso CP football club, the first and only organized CP club in Ghana.
The Nima-based club, founded four years ago by Emmanuel Akpabli, hosts footballers with different types of cerebral palsy. The club has a mission to give young people with CP a purpose, provided they have the passion and talent to play.
With no CP football league operating in the country, the team usually trains by participating in friendly matches with non-disabled lower division teams. Akpabli runs the club on his own finances, and although there has been very little support, he says he finds joy in putting a smile on the faces of the players under his care.
“When you look at the nature of their disability, they’re looking for work and nobody wants to give them a job. That’s how they put everything here [in CP football]Akpabli said.
Like many professional clubs, Ayawaso CP recruits its players through scouting. Others were also picked from the streets, where they were homeless, while some parents were just happy to bring their children to a place where their circumstances were not judged and stereotyped.
“Some of the kids don’t have friends to play with,” coach Abdul Karim Mustapha said. “The stigma is so great that when parents hear that we have time for people with special needs, they are surprised, so they quickly call and get them to join the team.”
Such is the talent in the squad that Ghana’s national WC squad draws from several of its players.
Cerebral palsy rates high in Ghana
According to the Ghana Population and Housing Census, one child in three households has a disability and is out of school because of their condition. Notably, cases of cerebral palsy are also very high in the country, accounting for one in 300 newborns.
The Center for Learning and Child Development estimates that 85% of children with CP in Ghana have no formal education because they do not meet the basic functional abilities required by the government for school enrollment.
Sport has often provided an escape, but unlike other para-sports such as athletics, amputee football, wheelchair cycling and goalball, CP football is fairly new in Ghana.
But Akpabli says plans are underway to establish more CP football clubs across the country. The aim is to welcome all people with cerebral palsy who wish to play football, regardless of their location.
Already, Ghana is one of the few African countries with a national CP team. The country’s first CP football match was against rival Nigeria, a match they lost 7-0.
The long-term goal of the Ghana Cerebral Palsy Football Federation is to qualify for the IFCPF World Cup or the IFCPF World Championship, which are the two biggest competitions for CP national teams.
But CP football remains one of the least funded football sectors in the West African country. Infighting among the hierarchy of the Ghana Cerebral Palsy Football Association has also created a leadership crisis that is hurting the growth of the sport.
Disability sport struggles for funding
And while Ghana’s non-disabled national teams continue to be financially spoiled — the men’s national soccer team spent $5.1 million (€4.7 million) on the Qatar 2022 World Cup — CP soccer and other para-sports receive a lot little government support and usually rely on the kindness of individuals.
“We need more CP football teams around to even have a league and promote those who are interested and get them off the streets. There are a lot of them on the streets; the stigma they face alone is not easy,” adds the coach of the Mustapha club.
Meanwhile, Sayouti, whose idol is Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois, says he will “keep training and wait for my chance”.
It’s all he can do for now. CP football is a fledgling in Ghana, but with no support system in place, all the players have is the dream of bigger stadiums to showcase their talent — even if things aren’t looking good at the moment.
Edited by Matt Pearson