body-container-line-1
05.12.2003 Football News

Clubs Threaten Legal Battle Over League Table

05.12.2003 LISTEN
By Graphic

Two days to the end of the Kinapharma Premier League, the offices of the GFA Secretariat continue to be besieged by anxious reporters and agitated club officials for an official version of the clubs’ positions on the league.

But with no clues whatsoever, officials of the association have been fleeing the barrage of questions and enquiries with the explanation that there is nothing conclusive to show now. The situation has arisen as a result of the loads of off-the-field incidents that have fetched a host of clubs some valuable points in the boardroom of the FA.

The public uproar that has followed Obuasi Goldfields’ loss of 12 points, courtesy a boardroom decision, the Graphic Sports learnt from official sources, has also placed the association in an uncertain dilemma, hence its inability to produce an official league table.

The clumsy nature of protests and the manner their results at the various committees of the GFA have been announced, some of them through unofficial sources, have kept most clubs unsure about their true status in the 16-club competition.

Graphic Sports enquiries for the official version of the league table hit a dead end last Tuesday and Wednesday when Mr K. Ampem-Darko, GFA Deputy General Secretary (Technical), confirmed that his outfit is yet to piece one together.

This development has shot up the anger in both club officials and football followers who claim they are being denied a legitimate right to know of their status ahead of the final matches on Sunday.

Leading the crusade in this respect is Mr Jones Alhassan Abu, a Director and Accra representative of RTU, who told the Graphic Sports that he has been unsuccessful at getting the official position of RTU from the GFA secretariat.

RTU are beneficiaries of two boardroom victories as a result of separate protests against two clubs but, according to Mr Alhassan Abu, the club is yet to find the confirmation of the victory from official sources. “Our supporters back home in the north even doubt if we have indeed been handed favourable verdicts in those protests,” he lamented, recounting the pressure being brought on them by their following.

Mr Alhassan and RTU are just one in this unfortunate web, as the true picture is even more astonishing. That several clubs are unaware of their loss of points at boardroom level has shot up anxiety within a big percentage of them, most of whom have threatened court action should the final table place them in the relegation net.

Most of the clubs said have relied on versions of the league table supplied by the media, but with the uncertainty over point haul and point loss through protests, what have been produced in print and on air have created more confusion in their minds.

Indeed, the media have, in recent times, carried varied versions of the league table, computing their own mathematics as informed by rulings at the boardroom. With the present state of afairs, the league is set to end without an official league table.

body-container-line