2023-05-23 05:53:00
“Of course a business model”
Lothar Matthäus buys a football club
5/23/2023 7:53 am
If Ghanaian soccer players move from the domestic league to Europe in the future, a German soccer icon could make some money: Lothar Matthäus recently became a co-owner of a team in Ghana. The record national player calls his commitment “a business model”.
Lothar Matthäus is many things: TV expert, record national player, former national coach, football legend. Now Lothar Matthäus is also a club owner. The 62-year-old has bought into the Accra Lions in Ghana. Players’ agent Oliver König and the Ghanaian footballer Frank Acheampong are also on board. Both would have inspired Matthäus for the project. “So much so that we decided to become a partner here.” The club’s sports director is former Bundesliga professional Ibrahim Tanko, who played ten international matches for Ghana.
“Of course it’s a business model,” Matthäus told the “Bild” newspaper. “Ghana has always had huge talent potential, you can see that in the national team. We want to bring young players to Europe. In a serious way and already well trained. That’s why we’re investing in the training ground here.” According to the transfermarkt.de portal, the young squad (average age: almost 19 years) is worth 2 million euros. In the Ghana Premier League, the team occupies a midfield position shortly before the end of the season. No information was given about the amount of Matthäus’ financial contribution.
In a speech last summer, Kurt Okraku, President of the Ghana Football Association, encouraged individuals to invest in domestic football – and described them as the “builders of the nation”. However, the investment by the Germans will only pay off if players from the Ghanaian league are transferred to Europe – and achieve the high revenues they are hoping for.
In Accra, Lothar Matthäus, who was a Bundesliga ambassador in the Ghanaian capital in 2019, will meet his former team-mate Samuel Kuffour. Both once played together for FC Bayern Munich. The former defender also runs a business in Accra: Kuffour earns his money after his football career with real estate.
Ghanaian football is currently a long way from its former heyday: the national team is ranked 60th in the world, the last of four victories in the Africa Cup was more than 40 years ago, and the league is struggling with a violence problem. At the 2022 World Cup, the “Black Stars”, trained by former BVB professional Otto Addo, were eliminated in the preliminary round.
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