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12.04.2012 Editorial

EDITORIAL: Another Midsea? - Thanks Ato Ahwoi

By Daily Graphic
EDITORIAL: Another Midsea? - Thanks Ato Ahwoi
12.04.2012 LISTEN

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since this short easter break which may be worth our while to comment on.

On the eve of the break, the unfortunate news hit the airwaves that some high profile people in Ghana football would be richer by some $2 million each year, the reward for brokering a sponsorship deal for the Black Stars.

That sponsorship has been secured for the Stars with the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC) coming in handy for the departing Gold Fields Ghana Limited, who has sponsored the national team since 2005, is news to behold.

But the snag is that the projected $3 million-a-year sponsorship by GNPC for three years stands the danger of being scuttled altogether should the so-called agents not refrain from their alleged scandalous planks.

As published elsewhere, the chairman of the board of GNPC, Ato Awhoi, has been categorical in his denial of any agent in the decision to get the company to sponsor the Stars for three years. After all, GNPC considers the gesture as part of its social responsibility to the people of Ghana and will not entertain a third party fleecing the national team of its just sponsorship.

Indeed, GNPC must have acknowledged the request from the FA president, as we are told, that the company be made to step in. And it was based on that approah that the company gave its word to take up the sponsorship for the next three years.

Against this backdrop, the GNPC board chair was reported to have threatened that the national oil company would back off from the sponsorship should the FA present any body or entity as agent responsible for the facilitation of the deal to which an agency fee would be paid.

So, if the deal was brokered between the FA president and the GNPC board chairman, as it were, then the crucial question to be asked is, at what point did the company called Westhead come in as agents in the deal?

This is a question that must interest the Public Interest Committee (PIC) of the GFA, as well as the FA’s Sponsorship Committee, and above all the para-statal Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), to move in swiftly.

We think that this matter should be investigated for the full facts to be established whether there was any role played at all by Westhead and if not what must be the motive for the alleged representation or misrepresentation?

For us, this latest in the sponsorship deal for the Black Stars throws up reminders of the Midsea saga in the Glo sponsorship deal for the Ghana Premier League.

In circumstances too close to call, an estate company by name Midsea metamorphosed into a football agency and allegedly brokered the Glo deal which entitled it for a 10 per cent agency fee. But Midsea’s alleged role has since been disputed as only a facade while the agents remain dysfunctional in the affairs of the sponsorship.

If some smart fellows around Ghana football took everybody for a ride in the Glo-Midsea deal, we can only thank the GNPC board chairman for his vigilance in averting for now what otherwise would have been another murky sponsorship deal that would make people enrich their pockets for no apparent work.

It is a shame that some people have conveniently attached themselves to the FA like a leech and looking for loopholes to exploit in the system to fatten their wallets.

Indeed, the FA must feel scandalised by these developments and needs to take appropriate and far-reaching steps to purge its ranks of the dishonest opportunists.

Meanwhile, the news of Kwasi Appiah’s appointment as the substantive coach of the Black Stars hit the footballing world like a jack-hammer.

And for us, who have been vehement in the campaign for local coaches, we would naturally be expected to applaud the appointment of Kwasi Appiah.

But more anon...

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