Silent Pitch: Der Preis des Protests im Fußball

01.06.2026
C3-Radio
Silent Pitch: Der Preis des Protests im Fußball

Fußball ist in Ghana mehr als nur ein Spiel - er ist Leidenschaft, Identität und nationale Begeisterung. Auch deshalb erhofft sich das Land bei der in Kürze startenden Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft in Nordamerika große Erfolge.  

Doch warum bleibt gerade dieser mächtige Sport so still, wenn es um gesellschaftliche Missstände, politische Konflikte oder soziale und ökologische Ungerechtigkeit geht? Diese Folge des C3-Radio geht genau dieser Frage nach. Dafür zeigt sie die Audio-Dokumentation „Silent Pitch“ des ghanaischen Radiosenders „Africa Global Radio“. Diese ist Teil des Projekts GAME ON der fairplay Initiative am Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation (VIDC). 

Mit eindringlichen Geschichten und persönlichen Erfahrungen beleuchtet der Podcast die unsichtbaren Mechanismen aus Angst, Macht und Abhängigkeit, die Spieler*innen, Journalist*innen und Funktionär*innen in Ghana zum Schweigen bringen. Und er zeigt, welchen Preis Menschen zahlen, die ihre Stimme erheben: Ehemalige Nationalspieler*innen verlieren ihre Karrierechancen, Journalist*innen werden bedroht, und selbst große Fußballstars geraten unter Druck, sobald sie Kritik äußern. 

Gleichzeitig erzählt der Podcast aber auch von mutigen Momenten des Widerstands - von Spieler*innen, die streiken, Fans, die Veränderungen fordern, und einer jungen Generation, die beginnt, Fußball als Werkzeug für gesellschaftlichen Wandel zu verstehen. Eine Folge über die enge Verbindung von Sport, Politik und Gesellschaft - und über die Frage, wem der Fußball eigentlich gehört.

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Host: Jakob Pallinger
Musik by Alisia from Pixabay and Oleg Fedak from Pixabay

Audio-Dokumentation "Silent Pitch"
Host: Yasmin Bitugu
Stimmen: Muftawu Nabila Abdulai, Ekow Asmah, Nathaniel Attoh, Abigail Sena Sosu, Dr. Bella Bello Bitugu, Kassim Awal Osuman
Produziert von: Africa Global Radio
Research & Development: Yasmin Bitugu
Production Coordinator & Creative Lead: Emmanuel Kennedy
Sound Editor: Perfect Tovoe
Sound Design: Emmanuel Kennedy, Perfect Tovoe
Mastering: Seth Djan
Original Music / Score: Emmanuel Kennedy
Supported by VIDC FairPlay and ADA

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Transcript

Jakob Pallinger

Hallo und herzlich willkommen. Freut mich, dass ihr heute dabei seid. Mein Name ist Jakob Pallinger und ich darf euch ab heute durch die nächsten Folgen des C3-Radios führen. 

Und wir haben für heute gleich etwas ganz Besonderes geplant: Nämlich eine Folge über Fußball. Ihr fragt euch jetzt vielleicht: Was hat Fußball genau mit Entwicklungspolitik zu tun? Und ich muss zugeben, dass ich bis vor kurzem auch keine schlaue Antwort darauf gehabt hätte. 

Aber immerhin beginnt in Kürze die Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft der Männer in Nordamerika. Und daran werden nicht nur Österreich, die USA und Kanada teilnehmen, sondern auch viele Länder aus dem Globalen Süden, wie etwa Ghana. 

In dem Land in Westafrika hat Fußball eine enorme Bedeutung: Die Stadien sind regelmäßig gefüllt, und die Nationalmannschaft zählt zu den erfolgreichsten in ganz Afrika. Doch während es auf den Rängen und auf dem Feld regelmäßig laut wird, bleibt Fußball auffallend still, wenn es um gesellschaftliche Missstände oder ökologische Probleme geht. Und das trifft nicht nur auf Ghana, sondern wohl auch auf Österreich und Europa zu. 

Woran liegt das? Hätte Fußball nicht enormes Potenzial, sich für mehr Teilhabe, Gleichberechtigung oder Nachhaltigkeit einzusetzen?

Um diese Fragen geht es in dem Beitrag, den wir gleich hören werden. Produziert hat ihn der ghanaische Radiosender “Africa Global Radio”. Der Beitrag auf Englisch ist Teil des Projekts GAME ON der Initiative fairplay am Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation (VIDC). 

In der Audio-Dokumentation wird klar, wie sehr Politik, Macht und Geld beim Fußball zusammenhängen. Und welche Kraft in dem Sport liegen würde, soziale Transformationen voranzutreiben. Hören wir rein. 

In Ghana, the stadiums are full.
The passion is real.
But when there is something to say, something to challenge, something to change, football goes quiet.
This silence is not accidental.
Silent Pitch is an audio documentary produced by Africa Global Radio.

The best success in football on the continent.
We cannot become a ridicule.
We cannot become a global radical.
We cannot tolerate again.

Muftawu Nabila Abdullah, Sports journalist 

Football and Politics have a relationship.
It is a relationship, I believe, that is implicit.
It is a relationship, I believe, that is not used to drive social change in this country.
It does not address any social issue in the country.
The sport stays quiet.
It keeps quiet whenever some of these things come up.
That's why I describe the relationship as an implicit one.
There's a connection, but that connection is a silent connection, not a loud one.

Dr. Bella Bello Bituku, Sports Development Academic And practitioner 

Football activism is actually not properly defined and contextualized to address issues and matters in the society. People don't even have that imagination.

Eko Asma, Sports journalist 

It's not surprising. That the activism is not the norm in Africa. In Ghana, to be specific.

Nathaniel Attoh, Sports Journalist 

As a collective, We have not exactly placed that premium on our local football to be a platform or an effective platform for activism.

We want accountability.
We want accountability.
We want accountability.
We want accountability.

Abigail Senna Sosua, Sports journalist 

There are A lot of social issues that could have been addressed, but sometimes you are politically entangled because you do not live in a vacuum. You are working with the Ministry of Sports and Recreation as well, talking about sponsorship, pipelines and other Things commercial, caution, fragmented player voices.
And so football is a big system.

But then they are little vulnerable when it comes some of these things.
So it makes it difficult for them to keep their voices up when it comes to some of these social issues.

Sports activism or football activism in this country is quite even alien to many people.
There are people in this country who do not even know that the sport is a tool that can drive social change.
We just see it as something for pastime.

We do not appreciate it when people are doing it or people do not voice it out.
We don't even know it, we don't see it.

We often forget that fans, journalists, the athletes themselves can actually demand change in the right sectors. But because we do not actually appreciate the fact that there's a certain voice that sport comes with, we don't use it.

People who are within the space of activism or have the means to send messages to cause social change are not recognizing that football is one very, very big platform that can be used for this.

You can say football because that is the most popular sports.
But sports generally has come to be a social tool for development and it is what happens beyond the pitch, in the dressing room, on the streets, in the communities where the players come from, in the society general are far, far, far more than what is happening here. People are using sports to support in many, many regards, in economic matters, in political matters, in social matters, in religious matters, educational. People are supporting. People are using the channel of football, the platform of football, to drive and implement change. And as we've had it in the past, during the anti colonial struggle, post colonial accession of the newly independent countries and so on. So football plays a very, very significant role in shaping social change.

Hundreds of football lovers and some sports journalists on Wednesday joined the Safe Ghana Football demonstration. The aim was to exert pressure on government, the Ministry of Youth and Sport as well as the Ghana Football association to find lasting solutions.

The silence begins at home.

In Ghana, The elder is always right. So even at the family level there is no sense of justice.
Even if you feel aggrieved, even at the family level, you're not gonna find justice.
Even if you are right, you'll be asked to apologize to the elder because they want to maintain a certain status quo. It is transferred into the corporate level.
The boss is the boss. It's a dictatorial, despotic measure used by the rulers to control the masses. This is the culture of Africa, unfortunately, and it plays out in football too.
It's a way of oppressing the people, suppressing the people. So given that culture, this is the environment. Given that environment, it's not surprising that the activism is not the norm.

As you grow, your environment impacts you. If you talk about your right, they say you are too normal. Unfortunately, if you are a woman, they say, oh you two, where are you from?
So the gender bias even adds to the way athletes are suppressed.

The players grew up in that environment from when there were children to young teens.
They know the system. The system is very oppressive. So they don't speak up.
If you speak up, you'll be penalized. My mom vetoed any political conversations as a condition for accepting that I do journalism. She said, well, you can't do political reporting, can't do current affairs, can't do anything political. I said, okay, I'll do sports, that's it. Ever since then I have never created space for socio political conversation.

The challenges that mainly arise are because of the powers that be. They don't want to step on the foot of authorities, administrators, government, with the powers, the federation, etc for them to lose face or favor. Athletes are indirectly blackmailed because the federations, the coaches, their managers, their teams, their clubs, up to even their government want them to play as they do, as they want, as they desire, as they feel.

The Ghana Football association is a very powerful institution.
It can actually determine the success or failure of any footballer or administrator.
So no one wants to risk the success of their careers by speaking out or speaking on sensitive issues. No one wants to risk their place in the national teams.
The president of the GFA had an interview on Joy FM and said that under his leadership, no player or no coach is going to be given the room single handedly to call up players to the national team. Imagine you speak on sensitive issues and the president of the FA says that you're not coming, but the coach wants you to come. Who hired the coach?
He's a president.

You will not be selected, you will not be given this, you will not be taken to, you will not be there. We have had a lot of those issues where people are not taken or are not included in the team simply because they have not been compliant or they had been too known, as they say in Ghana.

Ghana's national football teams carry names that reflect the country's identity. The men's senior team is the Black Stars. The women's senior team is the Black Queens.
Two of those who spoke out were Elizabeth Addo, AKA Ama Pele, former captain of the Black Queens, Emma Barak Wakaso, a midfielder who played for the Black Stars.

She demanded that Queens be Treated with a right respect in terms of their welfare. She's never been called up to the national team again. Mubaragua Castle went on television and claimed that politicians actually contributed to the failure of the black stars. Since then, he's never had an opportunity of playing football. I'm not sure he's granted an interview again. So it clearly suggests that it comes with its consequences. But a few people have spoken out. What has become of those people? It's a major challenge.

If you go against the norm and you get punished, you're not going to get any help.
So they advise themselves and not speak up.

Kasim Aswal Osman, president of the Nationwide Supporters Group of Ghana 

As sports fans, Particularly football, because we are coming from diverse places, different background, we have been culminated by both parties that will become very difficult because the mindset of current politics that we do here in Ghana is me, me, you, you.
I belonged here. And whatever you say, I don't. I don't care. I don't take it.

We have loads of reverence and difference for people in authority. We are falsely quiet because of in fact our upbringing. And there's also the economic vulnerability.
So if you speak up, as I mentioned, if you speak up, you will miss some opportunities.
So people will rather prioritize our our stability over confronting issues.

We cannot become a symbol for embarrassment.
Ghana football cannot become a symbol of embarrassment.
We just fix it.
We need to fix it.
G Ministry for you.
First National, First Authority Ghana Football Association.
Ghana Football Association.
Ghana Football Association.
We are not attacking you.
We are not insulting you.
We are not vilifying you.
Sit up and save the game.
We cannot become an instrument of global ridicule.

Some people have tried.

In 2024, some group of journalists decided that let's demonstrate against the leadership of the Crown of Football Association. Let's put it together. A petition. Submit it to the Ministry of Sports and Recreation. Submit a copy to the gfa. Submit a copy to Parliament and one to the presidency. It appears it fell on deaf ear. These journalists, as I speak, some of them have been denied their basic access to interviews. In fact, to even to open programs. You go to events and there's a certain hostility that you meet. It was the first time to actually see the NKE fraternity decide to step out and demonstrate what has become of those people. It's a major challenge.

I have not really experienced that. But that is not to say that it is not a harsh reality.
It does happen. I see it happen to other colleagues in the media, not even just in Ghana.
But it is something that does happen.

The closest group of media people came to activism was Save Ghana Football.
It ended up very disappointingly under suspicious circumstances.
They ended up giving it to those same parliamentarians who don't give a damn about football outcomes.

There was an assassination attempt on me in 2023, just before the African couple of nations in Cote d'Ivoire. Yeah, if my memory serves me right, yeah, that was AFCON 2024.
I've been threatened before with a physical attack or a physical assault, so it needs a certain level of courage. I continue to do this despite all the issues I've personally encountered. Stephen Appiah decided to speak out on the governance of football in this country. That conversation was less than 30 minutes, but it reverberated across the airwaves in this country. He was verbally abused even by people who should know better when he spoke, and he was not spared. Do you genuinely think Saba Pierre will ever speak out again on the ills of football in this country? Who are we? If you were the wife of Stephen A. Pierre and the people were going hard at him on social media, you tell him, don't speak out again. His kids will say, dad, don't speak up again.
You keep quiet. That's the kind of country we are in.

The sports minister made sure I was removed from the national service post at Grafik and posted to different sections. A day or two after he had made that public threat. I ended up getting chased, had to go through some swampy area. I knew the area very well, so I knew where I could run towards and I lost them. It was a very scary thing for me. I ended up showing up late in the night to a friend's house, shaking. And then I reported it to the police headquarters and I reported to the SWAG president at the time, who used to be my my boss. So it was not long after that I left the country.

The more we keep quiet, the more the power of football becomes subservient to people in authority. And that is one thing that we must try to avoid.

In the Ghana space, there's not a whole lot of sporting justice. We are all endangered species. We do what we can and with as much effort as we can summon.

One of the key issues that we have is problem with the environment and environmental degradation through illegal mining, which is also known as galamse. In another part of the world, football would have been used as a very big tool for activism to, you know, send home the message about the danger that, you know, illegal mining is posing. You would expect that the Ghana Premier League will be used as a platform for activism on stopping Galamse. But as a collective, we have not decided to turn our attention to it.

The owner of a club is a Galamseer. If you consider the idea of using football as a tool to advocate top Galamse, you need to get a full support from these clubs and of course the owners as well. So his support will be very reluctant.

The football ecosystem might not really be loud about it just to protect these forerunners and also to protect their relationship with the business community, who in the long run could provide sponsorships and all of that to look right in their side. So it's more of protecting the future of the game and also protecting the future of the players.

The media organizations control how their staff should cover, what or what to cover even.
And of course there is the issue of the mercenary activities. I mean the sports media is the most compromised in terms of the media work in the country. The mercenary activity is just too much. It's mercenaries versus the missionaries.
And I will say if I'm not being overboard, at least 97% of the sports media is machinary or compromised one way or the other. It's a problem.

There's even a certain level of gender inequality, the kind of energy that is channeled towards the black stars and other male national teams. We don't see that when it comes to the female national teams. The black queens have threatened to boycott major matches not less than three times.

Money, money, money, business, business, commercialization, commercialization, profit, profit, profit, capitalism all over and seeing only the aspects of money and commerce rather than seeing it as a game for people from grassroots up to the top.

But not everyone stayed quiet.

The black queens sit down in their hotel and say that they were not going to train until their bonuses were settled. The minister had to go to them, the GFA present and some members of EXCO had to go to to them. In 24 their the players decided to revolt and government had to fly millions of dollars across continents to go and pay their appearance fee at the World cup that was captured on live television. We're going to get into a point where people will speak out more female.

Teams, they have to get equal support that we gave it to the male.
I have taken upon myself to have that advocacy because over the years they don't get the same support. If for example, black wins are playing, the support they will get is not the same as the blast as playing 20 something by 50. What it means that we are talking about 1200 people going to support them in Togo Lumi.

This last wing at the grassroots level can sometimes be very effective, but it is a patient thing and it takes some time. But then when it uncourse, it anchors and it moves with sustainability and continuity. It is for us or the people at the grassroots level to talk, to make the voices heard, to make people listen and to let people take action. Sustainable action, not lip services.

Gradually, people are beginning to understand, understand that there is a different shift when it comes to the women and how we are willing to take football to a certain level.
Apart from the results, these girls are also getting into ambassadorial roles, having a lot of responsibility now, being activists here and there for a genuine social change.
We have to educate ourselves more and understand that football is not just for the entertainment, it goes beyond that. If that understanding sinks deep, they'll be able to avail themselves for any other social change that is being preached.

Maybe a time would come where they'll be able to get their voices and speak out without fear.

A time will come.
This is going to happen this month.

I think this is, it's like a hammer, as I always said, it can be used to damage the house.
It can also be used to build the house.
It depends on how you make it.

But the more we keep quiet, the more the power of football becomes subservient to people in authority.
And that is one thing that we.
We must try to avoid.

This documentary is an Africa Global Radio production created as part of Game On, Sport for Human Rights, a project by the Fair Play Initiative at VIDC in Austria, supported by the Austrian Development Agency.