Tema-Ghana, July 13, GNA – In order to raise the calibre of the Ghanaian Premier League and football in general, Ms. Adwoa Yeboah, a psychologist, has urged the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to enact a required psychologist policy for clubs.
She said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency Tema Sports Desk that psychologists set up activities to improve team and individual performance and support sportsmen and women in coping with injuries.
She added that they helped sportsmen and women to develop strategies to deal with nerves, anxiety, self-confidence, concentration, and motivation.
She said because football was a team activity and required various cognitive skills to participate, an individual must be attentive, focused, memorise strategies, coordinate, and carry out other tasks.
“You must also control the emotional component. Footballers frequently experience joy, elation, wrath, exhilaration, or frustration; as a result, psychology needs to be improved if players are to perform at their best on the pitch,” she noted.
Football psychology, according to Ms. Yeboah, is essential to comprehending the surroundings and the circumstances.
She said it was important to note that a football player with strong psychological ability uses setbacks as opportunities to grow, underlining that this is how they differentiate themselves from other players and maximise their potential as professional footballers.
She emphasised that psychology was a key factor in enhancing a football player’s performance before any game, just like it is in any other sport. Therefore, those who care for physical ailments are not limited to physiotherapists; these psychologists deal with their psychological problems in order to improve the play.
She emphasised that “sports psychologists help with overall personality development as well as on-field performance.”
