Work by the Ghana Football Association (GFA)’s Normalisation Committee continues to be scrutinised every day following their inauguration on September 13, 2018.
The scrutiny won’t stop until their mandate ends on March 31, 2019 or anytime a new GFA is ushered into office.
In the last few days, certain questions arising out of the committee’s own work, have agitated my mind and I will like to put them to the honourable committee. Depending on the information available to you, some of the questions might come either as relevant or irrelevant.
Whatever it’s, my right to free speech and free thinking is actively in session. Your take on the questions bothers me not. I however respect your opinion. Now, here are the questions. If I ever get answers to them, good! If I don’t get answers, no problem. The scrutiny of the committee will be on in either case.
- Why hasn’t the Normalisation Committee officially met or interacted with sponsors of the Ghana Premier League, the FA Cup, Women’s League and the Women’s FA Cup?
- Doesn’t the committee consider these reputable business entities worthy stakeholders to be engaged in their numerous consultations in the last three months?
- If the Normalisation Committee has officially met these corporate bodies that support Ghana football with their hard-earned money, what was the outcome of the various meetings?
- Contracts must be respected. Business relationship has to be built. So, what’s the status of the sponsorships and the relationship between the Ghana Football Association and its sponsors – Puma, Zylofon Cash, MTN, NASCO, Sanford World Clinic, FreshPak – after Anas’ #12?
- Letters of Appreciation, signed by Deputy General Secretary, Alex Asante, have been sent to heads and members of committees under the previous GFA. When will the new committees come into being and will the former committee heads and members be paid any honorarium?
- There’s nothing wrong with getting paid for a task or an assignment but how true are reports that, the Chairman of the Normalisation Committee, Dr. Kofi Amoah is paid US$5,200 while his members receive US$4,000 monthly as their salary and they’ve all received these amounts since they started work?
- No disrespect to the Normalisation Committee: But wasn’t the media told at the October 17, 2018 media interaction at Alisa Hotel, Accra, that: the committee isn’t paid anything?
- Are there not integrity and transparency issues, to be noted, when the committee gets paid for their work to Ghana football yet they’ve publicly denied being paid anything?
- It’s good to bring back local football. However, precisely what is the problem with continuing the second round of the 2018/19 Ghana Premier League if we will have almost four months for a new competition plus a different competition now being planned by the Premier League clubs?
- If it’s a question of referees, their integrity and how their tainted hands soiled the credibility and competitiveness of the Ghana Premier League for example; isn’t reasonable enough to rather have the continuation of the league’s second round especially when the committee wants to organise integrity workshop for referees on January 15, 2019?
By Jerome Otchere