Ayariga:' Why I bought a division one club'

The Ghana minister of Sports has been explaining the rationale behind his decision to purchase the division one league club.

Minister of Youth and Sports, Mahama Ayariga has confirmed to the media that he was in the process of acquiring division one league club Tamale All Stars.

“Yes we are in the process of taking over Tamale All Stars which we are transferring to Bawku and in fact I have applied to the GFA for the name to be changed to Bawku United,” he said.

The Minister was also quick to dismiss the public sentiments citing conflict of interest. “I don't see there being any conflict of interest because I don't manager the FA so I don't see how that will occur. “In fact the person who manages the FA is himself a club owner. “There is no way there will be a conflict of interest between my job in terms of policy formation among other things and having a team for my constituency,” he noted.

He further mentioned that the decision to acquire the club for the Bawku community is in a bid to harness the talent among the Youth.

“You may know that I am the Member of Parliament for Bawku Central and we should not lose sight of the fact that apart from my responsibilities as a minister I have specific responsibilities as a Member of Parliament to promote entertainment, youth development and sports in my community,” he added.

 According to him there are ways in which sports can be used to promote unity, and Bawku has had a troubled history of many of our young people being involved in conflict and we have been exploring ways and means of promoting togetherness and unity among the youth.

“We want to find them alternative avenues of engaging their attention instead of having them focus on negative things so we thought that having a football club for the constituency called Bawku United will rebrand Bawku and secondly provide the youth who specifically have talent in football an opportunity for their individual development,” he noted.