Ghana Football Association to be dissolved after graft claims
ACCRA – Agence France-Presse
Ghana said on June 8 that it would dissolve the country’s football association after claims, in an undercover documentary, of bribe-taking by referees and kickbacks to top officials.
Information minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said the government had “decided to take immediate steps to have the GFA (Ghana Football Association) dissolved” because of the “widespread nature of the apparent rot.”
The revelations, filmed over two years by an investigative journalist and first revealed on Wednesday, have sent shockwaves through Ghana, where football is the national sport.
Abdul-Hamid said the government was “shocked and outraged” at the claims, which included referees apparently accepting bribes of at least $100 to throw matches.
GFA president Kwesi Nyantyaki was also caught on camera allegedly requesting $11 million from undercover reporters posing as investors to secure government contracts.
He also apparently tried to profit personally from a $5 million-a-year, five-year sponsorship deal with the GFA in what the expose said was a “clear breach” of ethics.
The information minister said the documentary “exposes gross malfunctioning of the Ghana Football Association characterized by widespread fraud, corruption and bribery.”
The conduct of all GFA officials and the suspended director-general of the National Sports Authority, Robert Sarfo Mensah, was referred to police for further investigation and any “appropriate action”, he added.
Provisional measures will be put in place to run the sport in Ghana until a new body is formed.
The Confederation of African Football and world governing body FIFA will be kept informed, he said.
“Government will see to it that the necessary reforms are urgently undertaken to sanitize football administration in the country,” the minister stated.
