Ghana: The GFA Elections And Matters Arising

Ebo Quansah

27 April 2011

Accra — The failure of the Satellites, the Under 20 national team, to reach the knock-out stage of the African Youth World Cup in South Africa, has put this nation on notice.

The message out there is that football in Ghana is on the slippery road to destruction, after the brilliant outing in 2009, culminating in the Black Stars’ outstanding performance in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

For the defending world champions to fail to qualify from Africa is not the very best. Weighed against similar failures by the Olympic squad, the Black Meteors, as well as the womens’ national team, the Queens, to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and the local Black Stars failure to win a single game in the Championship of African Football in Sudan recently, all combine to complete a picture of a football nation in crisis.

That is not the complete picture. The two teams that represented Ghana at continental football -Aduana Stars and Ashanti Gold, both failed the test at the preliminary stage. Football is not doing all that well, in spite of the brilliant outings of the senior national team, the Black Stars.

The senior national team needs constant supply of good materials from the youth level to sustain its performance, as one of the most potent forces in the world. With this sort of problem, one expected that the polls for the leadership of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) would be done away with quickly, for stake-holders to meet over falling standards of our national teams.

The vote was scheduled for tomorrow at the Prampram Soccer School of Excellence. But two main contenders disqualified on the basis that their entries did not meet the required standard fixed for the polls, had filed a protest scheduled to have been dealt with by the Arbitration Committee, as we went to press yesterday.

Mr. Vincent Sowah Odotei, Chief Executive of King Faisal Football Club of Kumasi, and Mr. Neil Armstrong-Montagbe, FIFA Transfer Instructor argued that the Elections Committee of the GFA erred in disqualifying them.

Without pre-judging the findings of the Arbitration Committee, it would be difficult to validate the nomination forms of the two on any grounds, other than the rules set out for the conduct of the vote. I am aware that in 2005, the committee decided that in spite of the failure of one of the contestants to meet the required standard for the election, he should be allowed to contest the vote as a show of goodwill.

Needless to state that a particular participant failed miserably at the polls. Rules are meant to be obeyed, otherwise, we shall all be living in the jungle where might is right. This particular vote has descended into the gutters with people playing the party card without success.

I can report on authority that following the failure by some party agents pulling all the strings at the Castle to get Abedi Ayew Pele to replace Mr. Kwesi Nyantakyi as Ghana’s nominated personality to contest for the CAF Executive position recently, those pulling the strings at the Castle met with the President of the Republic to agree to commit state funds to enable them support a candidate with sympathies towards the ruling NDC.

The President was reported to have told the agitators that following the bloody nose he received in the botched attempt to replace Kwesi Nyantakyi with Abedi Pele, he did not want to know.

Secondly, it was not a prudent practice to replace a person who had gone into the cauldron of Africa, virtually without state support, and won to be replaced as the FA President.

President John Atta Mills was reported to have scolded the party agents bent on replacing Nyantakyi, for getting the hands of the President burnt in the drama. Unperturbed, the group worked underground in their diabolical scheme to get the incumbent GFA boss jettisoned.

Meetings at which bizarre plots were concretized were secretly recorded. It is to the Glory of God that their nefarious plots have still not been carried out. Otherwise, decent people were prepared to commit their future to oracles and juju, if only that would lead to the unseating of the incumbent President of the Ghana Football Association. We are getting into a very bizarre situation.

In dismissing the nomination of Mr. Neil Armstrong Mortagbe, of Post Office Boxz AH 1306, Achimota-Accra, the GFA Election Committee observed as following: “Mr. Armstrong-Mortagbe’s nomination was presented well after business hours on 25th March 2011, when the Secretariat had closed.

Article 28.4 requires nominations presented after the deadline set for presentation, to be automatically rejected. We understand that to mean such nomination is automatically invalid,” the committee observed.

It went on to state: “We are of the view that the receipt by the Deputy General Secretary of Mr., Armstrong Mortagbe’s nomination could not change the fact that it was submitted late, after the deadline. Such receipt could not, therefore, validate the nomination.”

It went into explaining some technical issues before concluding thus: “In the circumstances we do not recommend the submission of Mr. Armstrong-Mortagbe’s name to members of the Association to contest the election.”

Mr. Neil Armstrong-Mortagbe was proposed by Rev.Oscar Siripi of Apex United, a second division football club in Accra and supported by four constituent bodies of the GFA, a premier division club and five division one clubs.

What makes this particular nomination interesting is that the first five clubs or affiliated bodies which supported the nominations had their accompanying signatures. The other five have names and no signatures. They merely had initials of the persons purported to have done the nomination.

For instance, Allassan Mohammed was simply signed as A.M, Moses Armah’s signature was simply MA, while David Fugah’s entry was D.F.

In the case of Mr. Vincent Sowah Odotei, the entry’s main problem was with the nomination by Mr. Salim Ahmed Salim, coaches’ representative on the Volta Regional FA.

In a resolution passed by 11 out of the 12-member organization on April 4, 2011, the Volta RFA repudiated the support. “We have not authorized anybody to endorse, support or sign the nomination form for any candidate for election to the office of President of the Ghana Football Association.

We have not at any time given our consent, authority, power or mandate to anybody or group of people to act in their individual or collective behalf of the Volta Regional Football Association.”

It went on to state: “Any endorsement or formal support purportedly given to any candidate for election to the office of the President of the Ghana Football Association was given without authority and is hereby declared as being null and void and without any legal effect.

“The GFA, its Election Committee, the Media and the general public I, therefore, advised to disregard any such endorsement of the candidacy of any person seeking the office of the President of the Ghana Football Association.”

Following this development, the GFA Election Committee made this recommendation: We are of the opinion that Mr. Salim did not have the authority of the Volta RFA to represent it in the endorsement of Mr. Odotei. It is our view, in the circumstances, that Mr. Vincent Odotei’s nomination to contest the position of GFA President does not meet the requirement of the Statutes, particularly Article 28.2.

It is not supported by 10 (10) members of the GFA Congress. We do not recommend that his name be presented to members of the Association to contest the election of the GFA President.

With two other entrants -Mr. Nii Odarkwei Makkenzy-Golightly and Mr. Foresight Alhassan withdrawing from the contest, the five-man field has been whittled down to only one – Mr. Kwesi Nyantakyi.

This reporter has learned that Mr. Odotei and Mr. Armstrong-Mortagbe are arguing that one of the three-man Election Committee -Mr. Emmanuel Effah Annan, owns a law firm with Mr. Kwesi Nyantakyi and, therefore, could have influenced the decision of the committee.

That is one of the major issues the Arbitration Committee of the GFA has to deal, before the football family gathers at Prampram for the vote or endorsement.

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