An independent candidate in the December 2024 Presidential elections, Nana Kwame Bediako has advised Ghanaians to use their time productively, instead of wasting hours in the name of watching football.
”Cheddar”, as he is affectionately, has anchored his campaign on radical ideas ostensibly to win the trust of electorates ahead of Saturday’s polls.
In what was the latest of his firebrand approach, Mr. Bediako questioned the wisdom in dedicating hours of one’s productive hours to watch other people make money.
”I think that first of all, if you spend two hours, watching football almost every two days, in a year, you would have spent 1000 hours of your time.”
”Or 500 hours of your time, watching football that someone is getting paid $500,000 a week but you watch them for free and pay your hours into it,” he told state broadcaster, GTV on Tuesday.
Mr. Bediako, who was a guest on the state broadcaster’s ”Presidential Encounters”, proposed what he believed to be a more profitable way of channeling Ghanaians interest in football.
”I don’t think that’s a good investment because your time is your most important asset and you have to use it sensibly”
”What I would do for sports, which I think we are lacking, that will stop people from just watching and not being a part of the industry, is to start to infuse sports into our educational system by partnering with people who have specialized in that because we Ghanaians we become footballers by vision, not by skills or training and they need to be trained and coached.”
Mr. Bediako’s calculations may be a few hundred thousands more than the average age in Europe’s most watched leagues.
The Premier League’s highest earner, Kevin Debruyne earns £400,000 a week while the average wage is approximately £94,000.
Italy’s Serie A has a considerably lower average wage; €44,000, while the league’s highest earner, Dusan Vlahovic earns €426,000 weekly although the amount reportedly includes deferred wages.
Per BeinSports, the highest paid player in Spain, Robert Lewandowski earns the equivalent of $640,000 weekly while average wage is $79,800.
Although the substance of Mr. Bediako’s comments, lies in the how much the Ghanaian football fan loses by watching others make money.
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