The Ghana Football Association is notorious for being corrupt. Of course, they stridently deny such accusations every time it comes out. Yet when they got such an opportunity to set questions to rest, they screwed it up.
And still, they continue to maintain that everyone else is wrong, and they are the only ones right when they shout- we are not corrupt!
Transparency International carried out a survey of Football Associations worldwide, ranking them via four criteria and placing them on a governance league table.
The key question was transparency and accountability, relating to how readily they make available the information on their dealings. Fifa allocates significant resources for every national football association, but there is little in the public domain to show how the money is spent- even Fifa’s website is noticeably bare on that front.
On four selected areas- Financial accounts, organisational statutes or charter, annual activity report, code of conduct or ethics- the GFA scored zero on all four accounts.
That makes them one of the worst run in the world, and they were joined by other African FA’s such as Burkina Faso, Gabon, Comoros, Eritrea and Algeria.
But the GFA refuted the claims, saying the report was erroneous, and that Transparency International did not seek out the full facts. Spokesperson Ibrahim Sani Dara spoke to Starr Fm.
“The research work done by Transparency International is erroneous. The GFA has financial reports that were presented to members of Congress recently. We have a code of conduct and even an organisation charter,” he said.
“Transparency International did not contact the Ghana FA for documentary evidence so I am disappointed in their research because it lacks accuracy,”
However, as their name suggests, they are Transparency International- and the GFA are anything but transparent. Maybe if they fix that, they would score better in the net report. We are talking about an annual grant of $250,000 after all- and nobody in Ghana has ever been told what any of it the past ten years Nyantakyi has been in office has been used for.