GFA Has Never Induced or Bribed A Referees – Saane Daara

Communications Director for the Ghana Football Association, Ibrahim Sannie Darra has officially given the clearest indication that his outfit does not involve itself in inducing match referees for World Cup qualifiers on the continent.

After the country failed to make the cut to the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, a member of the Management Committee of the Black Stars, Wilfred Osei Kweku Palmer said in an interview with the media that country's inability to qualify for the 2018 World Cup is the government's refusal to pay unclassified monies to match officials.

The Tema Youth bankroller cited examples including Black Stars versus Congo at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi and Black Stars against Uganda in Kampala.

Osei Kweku Palmer is convinced that if the country should have paid unclassified monies, the match officials wouldn't have frustrated the country in its World Cup qualification matches.

However, Saane Daara in an interview with Accra based Happy FM on Wednesday indicated that the GFA had never been involved in inducing referees.

“We, as a football association, do not believe in the inducement and we have never been involved in bribery. We have never done such a thing before.”

“When a referee is appointed for a match, by default, you expect him to be fair. That is a given. If and when we do have issues with a referee, there are ways we can proceed. One of such means was the recent protest we filed against South African referee Daniel Bennett. CAF has modalities to deal with referees who do not perform well and we are satisfied with them.”

The former BBC went on to state that unclassified payments were normally used for activities such as mobilising supporters for the Black Stars matches and organise scouting and reconnaissance trips ahead of Black Stars matches.

He explained that these things were valuable and helped the team.