体坛英语新闻：Nineteen Ghanaian team masseurs undergo training

ACCRA, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Nineteen team masseurs on Thursday graduated from the first-ever training course held at the University of Ghana's College of Health Sciences at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

The first batch of graduands including some masseurs from the national teams, Premier League clubs and Division One League clubs received certificates after undergoing the 12-week training program.

The course was organized by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) in close collaboration with the College of Health Sciences at Ghana's premier university.

GFA president Kwesi Nyantakyi thanked the university and college authorities for accepting to collaborate with the GFA in this endeavor.

He said the training marked the beginning of one of the many initiatives the GFA had earmarked to help develop the game of football in Ghana.

He said the need to strengthen the medical wing of the Technical Directorate could not be overemphasized, considering the range of injuries that had been recorded in games.

"The game of football has become extremely scientific, hence the need for us to strategically place ourselves well in this equation to take the necessary steps to ensure our masseurs go through a formal training since most of them learnt the practice on the job," said Nyantakyi.

"Since we have established a certificate training program, as part of our efforts to satisfy the club licensing requirements, this certificate will become our basic requirement before anybody is engaged as a masseur by the GFA or any club in Ghana."

He also called on club officials and managers to support the masseurs with the necessary logistics to enable them to perform their duties.

Nyantakyi further appealed to recognized academic institutions in and outside Ghana to run programs or courses of significant relevance to the development of football in Ghana.

"I challenge our academic institutions to consider programs in the area of computer analyses of various aspects of the game, including analyses of injury mechanisms and patterns. This is the current trend in the game," he noted.

The Dean of the School of Biomedical and Allied Health Sciences (SBAHS), Professor Patrick Ayeh-Kumi, thanked the GFA for its initiative and called for more collaboration in the area of medicine and sports science.