Parliament’s Sports Committee To Engage GPL Clubs Over Special Competition

The chairman of Parliamentary Sports Committee, Hon. Alex Kofi Agyekum, has revealed that he and his colleagues will meet with Ghana Premier League clubs on Wednesday to get their perspective on the cancelled Special Competition that was being put together by the GFA Normalisation Committee.

The competition was being organised to keep clubs active while footballing reforms were being done in the aftermath of the Anas “Number 12” documentary.

However, it was canceled by the Normalisation Committee which said that its efforts were being sabotaged by Premier League clubs.

The Normalisation Committee issued a statement on February 13 and detailed the challenges it was facing in the process of putting the competition together.

Hon. Agyekum spoke to Citi News after a meeting with the GFA Normalisation Committee on Tuesday and said that it would seek to get a full understanding of the situation by speaking to the clubs.

“Per what we heard from the Normalisation Committee, the Premier League clubs wanted a few things to be done in relation to the competition ranging to the structure and seeding of the teams.

The Committee gave in to these demands but at the tail end, we got to know that because of certain reasons, the clubs could not participate and so, we will meet the clubs and hear their side of the story so a conclusion can be reached on that matter.”

Will there be a way forward?

Hon. Agyekum stated that if the clubs were willing to work with the Normalisation Committee, a meeting would be called for the two entities to collaborate for the betterment of the local game.

“We asked the clubs if there was a window of opportunity and they would see eye to eye with the committee, we would have to bring the committee back so it meets with the other stakeholders and decide on the way forward.

This is not a war. It is only a misunderstanding between two groups and I think that per the discussions that we had with the Normalisation Committee, this is not a problem that cannot be solved.”

The Special Competition was to engage 16 Premier League and 48 Division One League clubs in a competition that was to be played via a mixture of group games and knockout games to determine winners and representatives for Ghana in the 2019 CAF Interclub competitions.

–citinewsroom