ACCRA, March 28, 2025 - Leicester City’s Ghanaian forward Jordan Pierre Ayew has finally, later than expected, become the substantive captain of the Ghana football team, the Black Stars.
Named captain ahead of Ghana’s double-header March fixtures against Chad and Madagascar in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, Jordan becomes the third member of the Ayew family, after his father the great Abedi Pele Ayew and brother Andre Ayew, to lead Ghana. And this is such a remarkable story in the history of not just Ghanaian and African football but world football as well. A story of a father and his two sons captaining one national team at various times in their careers.
THE FAMOUS AYEW DYNASTY
Already, the Ayew family has a special place in the annals of Ghanaian and African football. Including first son Ibrahim Ayew, better known as Rahim Ayew, who was prominent in the Black Stars B team’s impressive run to the final of the maiden Championship of African Nations (CHAN) tournament in Cote d’Ivoire in 2009 and who was part of the Black Stars team that were losing finalists to Egypt at the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Angola 2010, the Ayew family has a strong football heritage. There's also Abedi's younger brother of the same father Kwame Ayew - a striker who finished as the top scorer in the football competition of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona as Ghana won Africa’s first Olympic football medal (bronze).
Before his sons even grew up to dream of becoming footballers like him, Abedi, now 60, played together with Kwame for Ghana in two AFCON finals, at Tunisia 1994 and South Africa 1996, and several other games before and after those two tournaments, with the then rasta-haired Kwame famously setting him up to score the beautiful opening goal in the 2-0 win over Mozambique in Ghana’s last group game at South Africa ‘96. Their younger brother, Sola Ayew, a brilliant midfielder, played for the then famous Sekondi Eleven Wise and Accra Hearts of Oak and was also a key player of the Ghana U-20 team Black Satellites in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
ABEDI TAKES CONTROL FOR SENEGAL ‘92
Abedi, the three-time African Player of the Year who is arguably Africa’s greatest player of all time, won the African Cup of Nations title in 1982, becoming the youngest player to win it at 17 years old, after making his full Ghana debut at 16 in 1981 during the qualifiers for Libya ‘82. He first became Ghana captain in 1992 few days before he led and inspired the Black Stars to the final of the 1992 African Cup of Nations in Senegal where he was voted the undisputed Best Player of the Tournament.
From there, he, who was nicknamed Pele after the legendary Brazilian football king during his youthful playing days when he was once named Ghana’s Colts (Juvenile) Footballer of the Year in 1978, made the arm-band his own until he retired from international football in 1998. Interestingly, before Abedi at the AFCON, Pele himself first won the FIFA World Cup as the youngest player to do so, at 17 years old.
ANDRE MADE LEADER FOR EGYPT 2019
Abedi’s second son Andre, the BBC African Footballer of the Year in 2011 and captain of the Ghana U-20 team that famously won a trio of Under-20 titles - West Africa Football Union (WAFU), Africa and the historic FIFA U-20 World Cup - in 2009, emulated him in 2019 when he was named as the new Ghana captain, succeeding Asamoah Gyan ahead of the African Cup of Nations Egypt 2019 and leading Ghana for close to five years.
Andre, popular called Dede, made his Ghana debut in August 2007 and played in a record eight Africa Cup of Nations tournaments. He is Ghana’s all-time top scorer despite not being a striker and made three FIFA World Cup finals appearances, captaining Ghana in the last one at Qatar 2022. He wore the band with distinction until 2024 when he lost his position in the Black Stars team following Ghana’s poor showing at the last AFCON in Cote d’Ivoire.
JORDAN TAKES CHARGE ON THE ROAD TO NORTH AMERICA
With Jordan having taken over the captaincy from Thomas Partey, long after making his Ghana debut in September 2010, he follows in the footsteps of his father and brother in leading Ghana. And very importantly, his ascension to the captaincy has coincided with a crucial time in Ghanaian football with the country needing great redemption to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup after the hugely embarrassing failure of not winning even a single game in the African Cup of Nations qualifiers, thereby finishing last in a group with such moderate oppositions as Angola, Sudan and Niger and missing out on the next African football extravaganza, Morocco 2025. This followed other recent monumental failures of early exists at the last three AFCON tournaments - first round (Cote d’Ivoire 2023 and Cameroon 2021) and second round (Egypt 2019), not to mention the group-stage elimination at the last FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
ROAD TO REDEMPTION
Part of the great redemption the Black Stars need came with crucial victories against Chad and Madagascar in the qualifiers for the next World Cup set to take place in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Both wins set Ghana firmly in pole position as group leaders on the road to the 2026 World Cup. And the new captain, Jordan Ayew, has been heavily involved in these victories and indeed the entire qualification campaign so far.
Jordan has been involved in 9 of the team’s 15 goals in six games so far in the campaign, scoring a total of five and providing four assists. The highlights include the hat-trick he netted to inspire Ghana to a crucial 4-3 win against Central African Republic last June, his last-gasp winner in the 2-1 victory against Mali in Bamako last September and the hat-trick of assists to help the team to the impressive 3-0 dismissal of Madagascar this month.
Jordan was really on fire in the Madagascar game on a neutral ground in Morocco, coming to life as the main man behind the Back Stars’ impressive victory. Three days earlier, he was quiet in the 5-0 demolition of Chad at the Accra Sports Stadium, albeit scoring a penalty and providing a sublime assist for Ernest Nuamah's goal.
DIFFERENT LEADERSHIP SKILLS
They may be of the same blood but Abedi, Andre and Jordan are different personalities and so offer different leadership skills. Whilst Abedi and Andre, both of whom had or have had 17-year playing career each with the Black Stars, are naturally aggressive players and so were often seen shouting instructions and being in charge, Jordan has a quiet and slow demeanor and so doesn't talk much, on and off the pitch, and rather does more of his talking on the pitch with the ball.
It is his style of life and leadership which has been confirmed by his former Ghana team-mate Emmanuel Agyemang Badu. “He’s very calm, with a strong mentality. Playing with him, you would realise the guy he is,” Badu said of Jordan.
Jordan’s leadership has also impressed even the honest and plain-talking but hard-to-be-pleased former Ghana football association head Dr. Nyaho Tamakloe who is happy with his leadership of the Black Stars. “Jordan has shown a lot of qualities that a leader must show. Formally, he seemed to be a bit selfish, holding on to the ball for too long, but now he leads by example and his pass for (Mohammed) Kudus to score the last goal against Madagascar is an example,” He observed.
He added: “Jordan now is matured and knows exactly what the game is all about. I was at the game against Chad and I could see he has great camaraderie with his colleagues and this is a good sign of good leadership.”
And Kwabena Yeboah, the highly respected veteran journalist and president of the Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG), who is famously known as the ‘Writer’ and famously gave Abedi the popular descriptive nickname of the ‘maestro’, is profoundly elated about Jordan’s new role. “The Good Lord bless Ghana’s new captain. (He is) sincere, candid and just brilliant. Destiny child, destined to lead Ghana to glory. I pray for the supreme wisdom of the Most High to guide his path as he leads Ghana to the World Cup,” he wrote.
CAPTAINCY HAT-TRICK
With his brother Andre, 35, still out of the team despite his good form with his club side Le Havre in the French top flight, the 33 year-old Jordan is presently the most senior and most capped player in the Ghana set-up and was expected to be appointed Ghana captain after his brother, even before Partey. But despite the lateness in the captaincy coming to him, he now has it firmly on his arm, and his father Abedi and brother Andre - who, as he revealed prior to the Chad match, congratulated and advised him - would be more than happy that he has completed a unique captaincy hat-trick for the famous Ayew family.
