Although Ghana’s national hockey teams are yet to qualify for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, a technical director of the Ghana Hockey Association, Frank Oti-Mensah has booked his seat at next year’s Games.
He was one of the 20 appointments made by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) for the men’s hockey tournament at the Commonwealth Games to be held in Gold Coast, Australia.
Speaking in an interview with Awake Sports, Mr Oti-Mensah said he was excited to be the only African appointed for the role of a technical official for the Games.
He explained that two other South Africans were appointed to serve as an umpire and a video umpire for the men’s tournament while a female South African was also appointed as a video umpire for the women’s tournament.
He has to his credit as a technical official, two club championships in Zimbabwe, an Olympic qualifier and also a world cup qualifier both in Zimbabwe.
He has officiated an African Cup of Nations and U-17 World Cup qualifiers both in South Africa and was also a technical director for an U-21 World Cup qualifiers in Namibia.
In Kenya, he supervised two club championships and an African Cup of Nations while in Ghana he supervised the FIH World League Round1 and two club championships.
In December 2015, he was appointed for the FIH World League finals in India and went back the same month in the following year for the Junior World Cup.
Oti-Mensah was again appointed in March this year for the second round of the FIH World League in Bangladesh and also officiated in the third round of the league in London in June this year.
He is currently an FIH International Technical Official level 3 awaiting promotion to level 2 and amongst five international officials in Africa. He is also an FIH Educator on technical officiating and have been facilitating technical course internationally.
He was an active hockey player with Exchequers but retired in 2002 to upgrade himself as an official of the game.
