Standoffs with players won't happen again - Sports Ministry

Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Vincent Oppong Asamoah has pledged that measures will be put in place to avoid future standoffs between his outfit and national football players over unpaid bonuses.

The Sports Ministry has been in the news for the past two weeks following their inability to settle the Black Queens after their qualification and participation at the just ended All African Games where they won football gold.

Oppong Asamoah, who noted how relieved he was when President Mahama intervened in the impasse, wants to avoid this in future.

“We need to prioritize and I am thinking that if we don’t have the resources we don’t go at all,” he told Joy Sports .

“Once we decide that is what we want to do then the resources should be available. We have learnt our lessons and to us we had a committee that had all the federations in it and all the issues we agreed was uploaded and we thought the representative from the GFA was going to communicate but that did not happen.”

Last Tuesday, President Mahama ordered the payment of $5,000 to each player as a bonus for their achievement, following a nine-day strike at the M Plaza Hotel in Accra.

The series of events echoes a standoff between the sports ministry and the Black Stars a year ago in Brazil which culminated in a shocking airlifting of over $3 million in cash to pay team bonuses.

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Story by Ghana/Joy Sports/Benedict Owusu