Dwight Yorke insists he is a manager and says Ghana job interests him

Dwight Yorke no longer wants to be portrayed as a former player trying to get started in coaching. “I’m not a kid trying to get into management – I’m a manager,” he says. In an interview, the former Trinidad and Tobago captain and head coach defends his experience and discusses his interest in the Ghana job.

Yorke had his first taste of management in May 2022, leading the A-League All Stars in a narrow friendly defeat by Barcelona. He says he has since built experience and wants that record to be recognised: “I’ve done that and I want that message to come across clearly.” He also argues that his playing honours do not define his whole profile. The treble-winner label, he says, applies to one season in a run of three Premier League titles with Manchester United between 1999 and 2001.

Over the past four years, Yorke has developed his coaching résumé away from Old Trafford. He says he discovered that he enjoyed the work in his early experiences. With a relatively unknown A-League team, he says, he won the Australia Cup three months into his spell; it was the club’s first trophy. He regrets not being able to complete the project. Speaking about the end of his time with Trinidad and Tobago, he describes a disagreement that was resolved amicably and says the decision to end the arrangement was beyond his control. The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association announced in March that negotiations on updated terms had yielded no deal and the contract was ended with both parties' consent.

Yorke believes his work should not be judged only by qualification. “People can be blind to success because they focus on whether you qualified,” he says, adding that he was given three tasks and completed two. He says he left Trinidadian football in a better place than he found it. “I miss management. I miss what we were creating,” he says.

The vacancy in Ghana gives his comments particular relevance. Carlos Queiroz left the head coach role on 1 October, and the Ghana Football Association is looking for a successor. Ghanaian media have named Yorke among those under consideration, alongside Pape Thiaw, Aliou Cissé and Walid Regragui. Yorke says an agent called to tell him Ghana were interested; the conversation then reached the media before he was fully aware of it. “It’s a job I’d be interested in, given Ghana’s history and the players available,” he says. He believes the side can sometimes look disjointed and says the quality of its squad makes the prospect even more appealing.

While a successor is sought, Ghana women’s head coach Kim Björkegren is due to take temporary charge of the men’s team for its qualifying double-header against Somalia next month. Yorke, meanwhile, is clear about how he sees himself: “I’m a manager.”