Ghanaian sports media has historically centered men‘s football above almost everything else, which means the women who broke barriers — on the track, in the ring, on the sidelines, and in federation boardrooms — often get far less recognition than their achievements warrant. This list profiles eight real, verifiable figures across different eras and disciplines of Ghanaian sport.
Note for the editorial team: where possible, reach out directly to living subjects (or their federations) for a fresh, on-record quote before publishing, rather than relying solely on prior media coverage as done here.
1. Alice Annum — Pioneering Track Athlete
Born in 1948, Alice Annum was the first Ghanaian woman to compete at the Olympics, representing Ghana across three consecutive Games — Tokyo 1964, Mexico City 1968, and Munich 1972. She won gold in the long jump at the 1965 All-Africa Games and gold in both the 100m and 200m at the 1973 edition, along with sprint medals at the 1970 and 1974 Commonwealth Games.
Decades before Ghana had any structured women’s sports development pathway, Annum was already competing on the world’s biggest athletics stage.
2. Mercy Tagoe — Black Queens Pioneer Turned Trailblazing Official
Mercy Tagoe represented Ghana’s Black Queens at the 1999 Women’s World Cup in the United States, then went on to become one of Ghana’s first female FIFA-accredited referees. She later became the first woman to serve as head coach of a Ghanaian club side, a milestone that opened a technical pathway for women in Ghanaian football that barely existed before her.
3. Habiba Atta Forson — The Woman Who Introduced Women’s Football to Ghana
Habiba Atta Forson is widely credited as the person who introduced organized women’s football to Ghana, and she founded Fabulous Ladies, one of the country’s earliest and most recognized women’s football clubs. Her early advocacy work laid infrastructure that the current Black Queens program and domestic women’s league still build on today.
4. Leanier Addy — First Woman on the GFA Executive Committee
Leanier Afiyea-Obo Addy became the first woman elected to the Ghana Football Association’s Executive Committee, first voted in during 2010 and re-elected in 2015. She also served as Chairperson of the Ghana Women’s League Board, helping shape governance and structure for the domestic women’s game during a formative period for the league.
5. Rachel Ankomah — Building Rugby League From Scratch for Ghanaian Women
Known within Ghanaian sport as a pioneer of women’s rugby league, Rachel Ankomah became the sport’s first women’s rugby league coordinator in the country and founded Accra Majestics Sports Academy to give young people — particularly girls — structured access to rugby and other sports.
She currently serves as Director of Corporate Communications for the Ghana Rugby Football Union, and in November 2025 she was named among the 50 Most Influential African Women in Sports by the Africa Sports Ventures Group.
6. Abigail Kwartekaa Quartey — Ghana’s First Female World Boxing Champion
Abigail Quartey grew up in Accra’s Jamestown neighborhood, a community with a deep boxing tradition but one where, as she has said, women were actively discouraged from the sport.
In November 2024, at age 27, she defeated British boxer Sangeeta Birdie at the Bukom Boxing Arena to win the WIBF World Super Bantamweight title, becoming Ghana’s first female world boxing champion.
She has been open about the resistance she faced early on, recalling that her family pleaded with her to quit when she first took up the sport as a teenager, according to interviews with the Associated Press and VOA.
She’s also been careful to credit the women who boxed before her but never had the chance to compete internationally, telling Africanews that earlier female boxers simply weren’t allowed to fight abroad.
7. Joyce Appiah Obenewa — 15 Years as a FIFA Referee
Joyce Appiah Obenewa built a 15-year officiating career, becoming a center referee in 2013 after four years as an assistant referee in Ghana’s Division One and Two leagues. She was the first Ghanaian female referee to attend the CAF Elite Referees’ Course in Morocco in 2017, before retiring from her FIFA role in 2024 — a career that helped normalize women officiating men’s domestic football in Ghana.
8. Portia Boakye — Captain of the Black Queens
As captain and the most-capped player in Black Queens history, Portia Boakye has represented Ghana across multiple Women’s Africa Cup of Nations campaigns, a competition where Ghana has finished runner-up on three occasions. Her longevity at the international level makes her one of the most recognizable current figures in Ghanaian women’s football.
The Next Generation Is Being Built Deliberately
This list isn’t just historical — Ghana’s football federation has been actively building a coaching pipeline for women in recent years. In 2026, the GFA’s all-female CAF Licence C coaching course brought together both active and retired Black Queens and domestic league players, part of a broader Women’s Football Strategy aimed at giving female players a structured route into coaching once their playing careers end.
As one GFA programme lead, Jennifer Ackah, put it after the course’s first module wrapped up, the federation risks losing valuable knowledge, leadership, and role models when players retire without a clear next step in the game.
Why This Kind of Coverage Matters
Representation in sports media shapes who young girls imagine themselves becoming. A teenage girl in Kumasi or Tamale who sees a female referee on television, or reads about a female GFA executive, has a concrete example that the pathway exists — not just as a slogan, but as a lived career several women have already built.
Barriers That Recur Across Generations
Reading these eight stories together, a pattern shows up repeatedly: family and community resistance to girls and women taking sport seriously, a near-total absence of sponsorship for women’s sport relative to men’s, and — until quite recently — almost no structured pathway from playing career into coaching, refereeing, or administration.
Quartey has spoken about relatives pressuring her coach to make her quit; earlier generations of women, including those Habiba Atta Forson worked alongside in founding the country’s first organized women’s football, faced similar resistance simply for wanting to play at all.
What’s changed is that Ghana’s sports federations have started building formal structures — coaching certification pathways, executive committee seats, referee development programs — that give the next generation something earlier trailblazers had to build for themselves from nothing.
Where to Follow Their Work Today
Ghana Football Association (GFA) — official announcements on the Women’s Football Strategy, coaching courses, and Black Queens fixtures.
Ghana Rugby Football Union — updates on women’s rugby league development, including programs linked to Rachel Ankomah’s Accra Majestics Sports Academy.
Africa Sports Ventures Group’s 50 Most Influential African Women in Sport — an annual, continent-wide list that has featured multiple Ghanaian honorees in recent years.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are there current opportunities for Ghanaian girls to get into sports like rugby or boxing? Yes. Programs like Rachel Ankomah’s Accra Majestics Sports Academy and community boxing gyms in areas like Jamestown actively train girls and young women, though structured, funded pathways remain far more limited than those available to boys.
Is Ghana producing more female coaches and referees now than in the past? Yes — the GFA’s all-female CAF Licence C coaching courses, which have run multiple cohorts in recent years, are a direct, structured response to the shortage of qualified female coaches highlighted by pioneers like Mercy Tagoe a generation earlier.
Who currently captains the Black Queens? Portia Boakye, Ghana’s most-capped women’s international player, captains the Black Queens as of the most recent international fixtures.
Final Word
From Alice Annum’s Olympic debut in the 1960s to Abigail Quartey’s world title in 2024 and a growing pipeline of GFA-certified female coaches today, Ghanaian women have been shaping the country’s sports history for six decades — often with far less recognition than their male counterparts received for comparable achievements. This list is a starting point, not a complete record.
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