Sports News of Wednesday, 9 January 2019
Source: footballmadeinghana.com
2019-01-09
Dr Kofi Amoah is the President of the Normalization Committee
The sixteen (16) clubs in the Premier League have resolved to boycott the upcoming Special Competition by the Ghana FA in protest of terms they consider to be ‘unacceptable’, FootballMadeinGhana.com can exclusively reveal.
This decision was arrived at by the clubs at an emergency meeting on Wednesday.
The Ghana FA had unveiled plans and modalities of organizing the Special Competition to fill the void caused by the halt on all local football activities since June 2018.
This competition was to involve all sixteen (16) and forty-eight (48) clubs in the Premier and Division One League respectively.
Participating clubs are assured a minimum number of eight matches as against a minimum pledge of GHc 20,000.
But the Premier League clubs, after their analysis on Wednesday have found that the guaranteed money for the preliminary rounds of the competition is woefully inadequate.
Per their analysis, the monies pledged could only cater for up to four matches.
The group has thus worked on a counter proposal based on the $800,000 the Normalisation Committee claims it has received from government towards the organisation of the Special Competition which is expected to kickoff on January 26.
Club representatives were taken through modalities of the competition
A meeting is expected to held between the Ghana FA and the Premier League clubs in a bid to find a middle ground on Thursday.
The clubs have however resolved that the figures announced as incentives for clubs to participate in the tournament is not enough and have resolved to boycott the competition if the status quo remain.
The clubs have also outrightly rejected a proposal from the Ghana FA to pay incentives directly to the players.
“We found the terms of this competition extremely unacceptable and thus we have rejected them,” a source at the meeting told FootballMadeinGhana.com.
“We have not only rejected but also made counter proposals as an alternative towards resolving this issue.”
It is unclear at this point whether the Ghana FA will consider the position of the Premier League clubs with Division One clubs also waiting in the wings to tow a similar line.
This is a massive setback for the Normalisation Committee in their bid to revive local football with the expected media launch of the Special Competition slated for Friday.
Members of the interim GFA leadership have failed to conduct broad consultations amongst industry players leading to the rejection of their proposals.
