Ghanaian Psychologist Patrick Ofori has been engaged to work with the senior men's national team, the Black Stars.
He holds a MSc. Degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology from Loughborough University and a BA in Psychology with Sociology from University of Ghana.
Ofori, who is pursuing his PhD in Sports Psychology from the University of Stirling, has the backing of Ghana Football Association President Kwesi Nyantakyi to help complete the efforts of the other backroom staff.
Kwesi Nyantakyi said: “We decided to appoint a sports psychologist to assist the team in preparing for games. This appointment is against the backdrop that we have realized some problems which appear to be psychological in nature.”
Among the identified problems Ofori's engagement is expected to help remedy is to improve the team's approach towards matches away.
“One of them is that we realized that our team doesn't do well in away matches. The problem is more pronounced during friendly matches and we think that the trend must change," Nyantakyi said.
“We think that these trend must change and the challenge is psychological in nature. After the Nations Cup in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, we came across some problems whose remedy lay, at the time, in the appointment of a psychologist. And so we thought that issues of superstition, self confidence and belief and other thoughts that affected the team could be settled or resolved through the appointment of a sports pyschologist.”