<<Print>>

Let me begin with an apology. Last week, I listed Ade Coker among those who took advantage of the World Cup draw to go on a pleasure trip to South Africa at the expense of the state. Apparently, Ade was not a member of the contingent. I apologize most sincerely for including the former Olympiacos boss among the parallel delegation to the one presented by the Ghana Football Association. Let me add straight away that I owe no other person an apology for exposing what clearly was an attempt at undermining the authority of the Ghana Football Association. I have met and spoken with the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr. Rasheed Pelpuo, who has since accepted responsibility for sending the team. I believe though that there is more to the trip than meets the eye. If the delegation was one single unit, comprising 15 members as the minister sought to explain, why was it that the GFA members arrived back I Accra on Saturday, a day after the draw, while the other members spent three extra days in South Africa? Having met the minister and heard his explanation, my first reaction was to feel sorry for him. He sounds genuine. But I am afraid he does not appear to appreciate the politics of his office and I minced no words about that. There are certain elements within his ruling party bent on using the power of their political connections to undermine the authority of the GFA. That is as clear as tomorrow will be Wednesday. I do not believe for a moment that someone like Mr. Kojo Bonsu, one-time Adidas representative in Ghana, for instance, went to South Africa because the minister asked him to come along. I will like to submit that the decision to send the parallel delegation to South Africa was influenced by Mr. Kojo Bonsu and those who believe in him, who found the trip as an opportunity to pursue the agenda of working behind the scenes to replace the current GFA executives with a pro-National Democratic Congress membership with the former Adidas representative as the boss. In the document entitled GOVERNMENT�S ROLE IN FOOTBALL ADMINISTRATION IN GHANA, published on the front page of state-run Daily Graphic recently without its political undertone, Mr. Kojo Bonsu and his fellow conspirators stated rather falsely that the GFA, as presently constituted, is an appendage of the New Patriotic Party. The document claimed that it was the NPP administration of ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor who funded the Presidential campaign of Kwesi Nyantekyi against Y.A. Ibrahim, widely acknowledged as a die-in-the wool NDC operative. �After the FIFA approval (of the GFA constitution), a deadline was fixed by FIFA for a GFA election to be held. The NPP government, bent on controlling football administration in the country, supported and financed Kwasi Nyantekyi�s F/A Presidential election campaign against Y.A. Ibrahim. �The acrimony and political division that emerged during the election has remained at the football front till today.� The above statement is palpably false. But the originators of the PIC concept believed they could throw dust in the eyes of the authorities to force the formation of the Public Interest Committee as a means of neutralizing the so-called political base of the GFA. Actions, they say, speak louder than words. Since the NDC took power in January 2009, Mr Kojo Bonsu and other conspirators have been scheming to undermine the authority of the GFA as a means of getting the executives replaced. In the document called for the institution of the Public Interest Committee, the conspirators stated thus: �When Kwasi Nyantekyi won the F/A presidential election, his administration and the then government felt there was no need for form the Public Interest Committee, since he and his team would cater for the government interest; however, if Ibrahim had won, the NPP government and Nyantekyi�s group could have called for the formation of the PIC to cater for the Government Interest in the National teams�. We need no ghost to tell us that Kojo Bonsu�s main interest in football at the moment is to get the executives of the GFA replaced by people with sympathies towards the NDC. That is why the minister ought to be careful in his dealings with the former Adidas representative and Ghana football. The moment the NDC took office, Kojo Bonsu and those who claim to believe in him began plotting to undermine the authority of the GFA. Does anybody remember the issue with a hired plane and the trip to Cote d�Ivoire during the finals of CHAN 2009 involving the local Black Stars and the Democratic Republic of Congo? In case you have forgotten, that began the problems of a certain Muntaka? Kojo Bonsu was the businessman alleged to have paid for the hiring of the plane. But I can submit here that there is no evidence so far to support the hiring claim. What is known is that the landing rights were paid for by the state. That is not all. There are claims that the delegation, constituting of mainly NDC officials and supporters of the party, took over a state transport bus for internal runs in the Ivorian capital at the expense of the state. That was how the seed leading to the pressure for the resignation of Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka Mubarack was sown. There is a long track record of scheming by Kojo Bonsu and others to undermine the GFA. So when a parallel delegation is dispatched to South Africa, at the time the GFA executives had already booked their seat at the draw, there is cause for concern. It is instructive too to learn that almost all members of the parallel delegation are known members of the NDC. In my submission last week, I wondered whether my friend Kwesi Pratt is now a member of the NDC to lend his honour to an event that clearly had a political connotation. I heard Kwesi making atrocious claims of his sporting credentials on an Accra FM station. But that is beside the point. There were two different claims about his assignment in South Africa. In one breath, Kwesi was assigned to advice on crowd control and in another report on how post apartheid South Africa could impact on Ghana�s participation in the World Cup, I beg your pardon! How could Kwesi Pratt, with all his knowledge in sports promotion, advice on crowd control and the impact of apartheid on Ghana�s participation in the World Cup? Are there no security experts in Ghana on these matters than my good friend? I heard Kwesi himself loud and clear going on and on about Cape Town and its zero seal level altitude. Someone should spare this nation the joke about Kwesi advising on apartheid and altitude when the site chosen by the GFA for camping of the Black Stars never involved Cape Town. In any case, how would Kwesi Pratt influence the Black Stars participation even if the draw had taken the Black Stars to Cape Town to feature in any of the matches? I think it is in the best interest of my friend to keep quiet. Many Ghanaians have had enough of his expertise on almost anything on earth on the airwaves. His sums do not add up. It is my humble submission too that in matters of such nature, the minister should avoid attaching his honourable office to the machinations of those who are hell-bent on promoting their personal interests above national aspirations. It is an established fact that Kojo Bonsu has an agenda of undermining Kwesi Nyantekyi and his GFA administration. The minister is advised to guard against a situation that could leave him without cover. Politics has a way of throwing well-meaning people to the wolves. Just spare a thought for Muntaka, his four-leg journeys to Cote d�Ivoire and Germany as well as his khebabs and pampers!