Bribery In Football — Reality Or Perception?

A Canadian author, Declan Hill, in his book 'The Fix' — about football and organised crime — has reportedly claimed that four games of the World Cup 2006 in Germany could have been rigged as three of the games had the exact results with the fourth one, missing it by just a goal.

The games were given as Italy Vs Ghana, England vs. Ecuador, Ukraine Vs Italy and Ghana Vs Brazil. While others think these are mere speculations and ought to be dismissed, some of us think otherwise and seriously agree with the Deputy Minister of Sports, Mr O. B. Amoah, that investigations should be instituted to get to the bottom of the matter.

You see, what appears to be steadily but unnoticeably gaining currency in the Ghanaian soccer lexicon is the often repeated statement in the print and electronic media—'Let us put the defeat behind us and move forward”.

That was the statement that filled the airwaves when the Black Stars were given 5-0 drubbing by Saudi Arabia.

The same statement was repeated when the Black Queens were also thrashed 4-0 by Canada in the September 2007 women's world cup in China.

In the latter case, we were even made to believe that 'putting the defeat behind us and looking ahead 'would enable the Queens to achieve, at least a face-saving win or draw with Norway.

But the strange thing about the Queens' drubbing was that at the time that Ghanaians were being asked to put the defeat behind them and look ahead, the Daily Graphic correspondent in China, Rosalind Amoh, in her article in the Daily Graphic of September 20, 2007 had hinted that betting agents had invaded the Queens' camp with a promise to pay $20,000 to each player if they allowed themselves not only to be beaten but by a margin of 5 or 1-6 by Norway.

That was a very crucial match since a win over Norway would have opened the chance for Canada (in group C) to qualify at the expense of Saudi Arabia.

According to the reporter, four players, a goalkeeper, two defenders and a midfielder were the main targets.

When this information reportedly leaked, the Queens' team officials tried to hush the incident by advising the players not to tell anybody or talk about the issue to anyone, especially the Ghanaian media.

And true to Rosalind Amoh's report, the Queens suffered their heaviest defeat of 2-7, by the expected margin of not less than 5 goals.

As already hinted by the reporter, the No.1 goalkeeper, Memunatu Sulemana, for inexplicable reasons, was dropped to be replaced by inexperienced Gladys Enti.

By the 62nd minute, Gladys Enti had conceded the six budgeted goals before she was replaced by the number one goalkeeper, Memunatu Sulemana.

And for the rest of the match, Memunatu, displaying her wizardry conceded only one goal.

Clearly, this can only be described as a daylight robbery as Memunatu was neither nursing an injury or on any sick list. So why drop her?

The suspicion of some underhand dealings by the Queens and officials was even given a further boost following information later gathered from the local radios that some of the technical men of the Queens brought in a lot of personal goods from China.

Indeed, some were even alleged to have shipped containers of goods to Accra. The question, therefore, is where did they get these huge moneys from?

Any declaration of such huge sums of money by them before emplaning at the Kotoka, International Airport? Or as usual, from 'friends'.

In the Daily Graphic of 26/9/07, and after the China tournament, Rosalind Amoh again wrote that “women football had so far been spared the usual sacking of coaches, which is so rampant in the men's game during such big international tournaments”.

This indeed is not only a loaded statement but appears to say it all. Very bizarre and incomprehensible inaction on the part of the GFA.

 The Black Queens' coach and their technical men should not only have been instantly sacked in China but probed to unearth the source of their sudden unusual wealth on their arrival in the country.

Talking about bribing of players and technical men readily brings to mind the case against Meteors' goalkeeper trainer, Abubakari Damba, sometime in 2007.

This technical man, Damba, was alleged to have influenced some Meteors players to play it soft with the Saudis.

  The same Saudis also spanked the Black Stars 5-0. Why the seemingly phobia for oil-rich Arab countries? Look at the way the Stars lackadaisically played the Libyans recently.

And we are to shut our eyes and ears and, always, proclaim any accusation of bribery as speculative. That's pure bunkum.

Though both the Meteors and Black Stars games were supposed to be international friendlies, a win surely meant a lot to the Saudis.

The most important being FIFA's recognition and, equally important, a large financial bonus from their Government to the players and handlers.

 Look at the way that Black Stars' defender cheekily conceded the last penalty to earn the Saudis their fifth goal.

But not all people can be fooled all the time. And so it came to pass that FIFA appeared not to have been fooled by the drubbing.

Interestingly and rightly too, FIFA dropped the Black Stars only two steps even after the 0-5 drubbing by the , and significantly, the drop in FIFA ratings was attributed to the Black Stars 1-1 drawn game with Senegal in London in August 2007 rather than their 5-0 defeat by the Saudis.

Apparently from the same perception, FIFA maintained the Black Stars in their ninth position in Africa (Daily Graphic of 20/90/07).

Obviously, an imposition of any sanction on the Black Stars by FIFA at that time would have had a devastating effect on CAN 2008 since Ghana was the host nation.

And now the real shock. For the first time ever in the history of the Black Stars, or better still, in the history of African soccer, ALL the English Clubs denied the Black Stars the use of their stadia for their training match against Reggae Boys of Jamaica.

The British Police, expectedly, assigned security as the basis for the refusals. But you know; only the grasshopper and or the vulture would believe this ruse.

One Vince Lombardi is quoted to have stated that “Individual commitment to a group effort—that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilisation work”( Vide page 14 of Business and Financial Times of Sept. 8, 2008).

Do we sincerely see this commitment among our sportsmen, particularly the footballers. Few examples may provide the answer.

In one of the African series, skipper J.J. Okocha who was then nursing a serious leg injury still accompanied the Super Green Eagles proudly claiming that his presence was to motivate the boys to give of their best.

In contrast, a Ghanaian international, with no proven record of injury or sickness, adamantly stuck to his London base for his employers to drum to the ears of Ghanaians that his ward would never feature for Ghana.

On another fine day too in Burkina Faso, a Ghanaian player based in Europe instigated a riotous situation in camp over what he alone saw as poor food and unsatisfactory camping conditions.

Significantly he showed no remorse when he was asked to leave camp.

Time and space would not allow for more examples but it may even be recalled that a Black Star player, sometime ago, insisted on wearing a cap at training sessions while his colleague always drove to the training grounds in his latest Mercedes sports car.

We must begin to set an example, not excluding imprisonment, of corrupt players and or handlers if our dreams of ever achieving international fame in sports, especially soccer, should become a reality; Otherwise, we must stop wasting the nation's scarce resources on sportsmen, especially footballers, and their handlers.

It is indeed very refreshing and a big relief that the Deputy Minister in charge of Sports, Mr O.B. Amoah, has assured the nation an that investigations would be instituted to get to the bottom of the matter.

As he rightly stated, the issue is not just about football, but about the entire nation's image and reputation.

And yes, “there are so many international matches ahead and government cannot continue to spend money only for it to know that matches were not won or lost genuinely.”

And about the choice of jerseys for the matches. Who decides for them?

The players, the handlers or the coach? You see, it is becoming increasing worrisome, and almost clear to some of us, that the colour of jerseys the Stars wear has a direct bearing on the outcome of their matches.

Statistics may show that the Stars perform abysmally low or poorest when they are not in their national colours—yellow or white with the Black Stars embossed on them.

But make no mistake. Don't impetuously dismiss this observation as superstition or speculation.

Modern science would not accept superstition or speculation as an answer to a situation where there is a regular co-relation between two events; colour of jerseys and defeat.

And since jerseys by themselves don't play football, then the problem is with the human being whose source of allegiance then becomes suspect.

Significantly, does it matter whether the defeats linked to these non-traditional jerseys are choreographed or not?.

The regularity or co-relation makes it imperative that we do away with them even if that is erroneously portrayed as superstitious.

Even more nauseating is the fact that somebody always has to identify the Black Stars to you when you join a TV audience late.

That's not the case with the Super Green Eagles. And absolutely not with the Indomitable Lions. There may be variations in the designs but not the colours. So why the Black Stars?

Even if the jerseys were being supplied free by Adidas etc, etc, we must have the conscience and patriotism to reject those that are not in our traditional colours with the Black Star boldly embossed on them.

Enough of this seemingly brazen greed by players and handlers of our national teams. Disciplinary action must go beyond Nania FC, Okwahu United etc, etc, etc.

And it is against this seemingly sordid background that some of us would want to express our deepest sympathy and pity to firms like the Guinness Ghana Ltd, the MTN and the Goldfields, and particularly the Government, which in the midst of the world-wide recession and inflation still continue to dole out hard-earned foreign moneys to these 'ungrateful' footballers or sportsmen.

I think we are both tired of each other.