Premier League clubs vow to defy claims of injunction to play league

Sports News of Saturday, 17 March 2018

Source: GHANAsoccernet.com

2018-03-17

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Clubs in the Ghana Premier League have vowed to play in the top flight from tomorrow despite claims of an injunction on the competition, Ghanasoccernet.com understands.

A supporter of Accra Great Olympics claims he has placed an injunction on the League but those claims have largely been ignored by people in football and the Premier League clubs.

Despite claims by Oloboi Commodore that they are not behind the injunction, the Olympics chief is the one distributing the purported injunction even though he is not a bailiff.

But clubs in the League say they will defy the claims of an injunction and will go ahead to play in the top flight from Saturday.

General Manager of newly promoted side Techiman Eleven Wonders Takyi Arhin has vehemently kicked against the purported latest injunction insisting his side will go ahead with the league, calling the bluff of the Wonder Club.

He challenged the court to arrest all club administrators if the purported injunction being served by Oloboi Commodore is legitimate.

“With or without injunction, the league will come on this weekend. The court should arrest all the club administrators,” Takyi Arhin told Sikka FM in Kumasi.

Accra Great Olympics had their application for an interlocutory injunction on the Ghana Premier League thrown out by an Accra High Court redirecting the aggrieved club to go back to the Ghana FA to seek their grievances addressed.

The judge ruled that the court lacks the jurisdiction to hear the matter, insisting that its an internal matter that the Ghana FA judicial processes should handle. The ruling by the court is similar to what FIFA said when Olympics approached the world governing body which also asked the club to abide by the dictates of the GFA judicial processes.This leaves Olympics in a big quagmire as the Disciplinary Committee of the GFA had already dealt with the case and rejected the claims of the Accra-based side after FIFA rejected their claims. This is the second time the court has rebuffed the Accra-based side’s request for the league to be delayed over their ambitious request to play in the Ghana Premier League despite their relegation.

The decision by the judge to dismisses the injunction request from Accra Great Olympics paves the way for the start of the Premier League this weekend.

The Accra-based club applied for a second injunction pending an appeal to prevent the Ghana Premier League from starting without Olympics. However, their request was snubbed by the judge who ruled that their claim has no basis to prevent the start of the league. The Wonder Club wanted a court injunction on the commencement of the 2017/18 campaign claiming the Disciplinary Committee of the GFA failed to give them a fair hearing in their protest filed against Bechem United after fielding an unqualified player.

The Disciplinary Committee rejected the claim by Olympics on two counts saying the quest for boardroom points cannot be granted as the protest was out of time.

The GFA rules state that a protest must be made within three days of the match being played but Olympics made their request SEVEN MONTHS after the game.

Their petition was also thrown out because there is nothing like a petition in the federation’s laws in the quest for points.

A disguised request by Olympics, masquerading as a supporter of the club, to have the matter heard by FIFA was also snubbed by the world governing body.

FIFA said Olympics must submit itself to the ruling of the Disciplinary Committee of the GFA and also slammed the request to have FIFA Disciplinary Codes implemented in the matter.

According to the Article 21 Clause 1 sub Clause 4 of the GFA statues which stipulates that clubs that fail to exhaust all internal modes of conflict resolution and seek redress at the court of law shall be expelled from the league.

The long drawn legal battle in courtroom was initially ruled by Justice Anthony Yeboah, a justice of the High Court, who rejected the first application by Olympics for an injunction on the league.

The start of the 2017/2018 Ghana Premier League season was postponed for the second time following the second application of injunction by Accra Great Olympics.

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