Sports News of Monday, 2 December 2019
Source: Graphic.com.gh
2019-12-02
Frank Davies of Davis and Davis Legal firm
The President of the now defunct Normalisation Committee (NC), Dr Kofi Amoah, could be forced to cough up US$ 100,000 to the new leadership of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), if it is established that he supervised a wrongful payment of the stated amount as legal charges.
The former NC boss has since come under intense pressure to refund the amount he allegedly paid to a lawyer but sources say he was ready to refund the money should the GFA impress on him to pay back the cash.
However, the NC boss believes the act of ingratitude has forced section of the media to wrongfully castigate him and the lawyer when they rather deserved commendation and want Ghanaians to change from that habit.
“In Ghana here when you do something that should be commended, they want to turn it around, we have to stop these things. You people have to stop these things, he said in an interview with Atinka FM last week.
He explained that our society did not reward hard work but rather tag everybody as corrupt even when they are working hard for the nation and emphasised that “Not everyone in this country is corrupt”.
“We need to engage our media people and make them know that you got to do your work in a way that would help the progress of society. There is this thinking that everybody is corrupt, when you are killing yourself for your nation. Not everyone in this country is corrupt.
Dr Amoah said the lawyer who benefited from the money deserve commendation and not the kind of cold reception being offered to him by Ghanaians.
“As a matter of fact, the lawyer who succeeded in collecting this money must be commended. Where something positive has been done, then we want to castigate the person for doing the right thing”.
Dr Amoah submitted an amount of US$ 900,000 out of US$ 1,000,000 to the GFA as final arbitration settlement owed the association by telecommunication giants, Globacom Ghana, following the corporate body’s decision to pull out of their deal to sponsor the Black Stars and Ghana Premier League three years after signing a five-year contract with the association.
The GFA last Thursday announced that an amount of US$ 900,000 was paid into their account by the NC boss who explained that 10 per cent of the total payment was paid as legal charges to the lawyer who helped them retrieve the money.
A statement issued by the GFA read ”The Normalisation Committee explained further that 10 per cent of the total payment of $1m US Dollars, being $100,000 US Dollars, was paid as legal charges to the lawyer of the Normalisation Committee contracted to pursue payment from Globacom Ghana”.
The latest development of the 10 per cent deduction by Dr Amoah did not go down well with stakeholders and the general public who called on the former GFA interim boss to refund the US$ 100,000 he paid for legal charges since Thaddeus Sory was the one contracted to worked on the settlement on behalf of the GFA under the Kwasi Nyantakyi-led administration.
In what could be a financial tussle between the association and its former caretaker boss, high-placed sources have told the Graphic Sports that Dr Amoah is expected to meet with the newly-constituted GFA Executive Council to convince them on why that payment was made.
Meanwhile, Dr Amoah is reported to have said he called GFA President, Kurt Okraku, after receiving the said amount from Globacom but the latter was in Egypt to support the Black Meteors during their African Cup of Nations (AFCON) last month.
