It is about the most criticised institution in Ghana. Maybe it’s so because it’s football – the country’s passion. I talk about the Ghana Football Association (GFA) and praise them (deservedly), but I also constructively lambast them over anything undesirable.
My criticism often relates to the lack of investment by clubs; low levels of spectating, meagre player wages, absence of proper infrastructure including poor pitches; substandard refereeing, hooliganism, etc. I must be frank, the denunciation the GFA receives particularly from its members is usually harsh, often denuding its integrity.
Why GFA members would rip their own apart with corruption allegations and the best the secretariat gives in response is silent treatment must be of concern to football fans here. It could be their clubs and their investment, yet Ghana football rests on their actions and inactions so we must be alarmed.
GFA President Kurt Okraku was right when at their 26th Ordinary Congress three years ago, he urged his members to reject image-tarnishing utterances as it had repercussions on sponsorship. "Despite the hard work done by you and me, there are a few of us who continuously leave their respect for this family and go out to malign our own product. We must reject this as a family” Kurt said on September 1, 2020.
Sadly, since then no season has ended without damning remarks by his own; from Albert Commey’s match-fixing claims to Alhaji Grunsah’s latest swipe asking Kurt Okraku and his General Secretary to resign. “This GFA is corrupt, people have been stealing money. If I will lose my team, he [Kurt] will lose his team too” the King Faisal owner told Luv FM.
“What has Kurt Okraku done for Ghana football? He called me into his office that I had no case, yet he wants to help me. Tell Kurt to resign together with his General Secretary” added the Black Stars management committee member as he expressed discontent over King Faisal’s loss of an appeal case that drove the nail deeper into their relegation coffin.
Has Grunsah any justification? It has been 72 hours since his interview. The association has gone mum. I do not expect them to fight back. This has been the trend. They will not take any remedial action yet wonder why the public have little in them.
When your own members drag you into the mud over corruption and you take no action, it is hard to court genuine public support and the investment of right-thinking businesses. No one bastardises the GFA more than its own members.
When the former Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo in June 2018 tagged the GFA as "rogue" and "being a tool of corruption" in a court petition, the GFA didn’t have a voice to respond or fight back because of what had befallen it post #12.
Today, the association’s vocal cords are strong, yet it cannot speak to serious allegations of corruption levelled against it by its own. Why? It is not the media. It is GFA members who run down their own business. Again, it is not journalists that this FA has sought to hound unjustifiably. The media have often and only mirrored life at the FA.
Let the GFA speak to their own, let them rein in their own, let them show enthusiasm in fighting for the integrity of the association because, on matters of trust, integrity, and corruption on one side, silence cannot be golden. It is rather worrying.