Tema Youth Replies GFA On Joseph Paintsil Transfer

Tema Youth Football Club has finally replied the Normalisation Committee (NC) of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) in respect of the transfer of Joseph Paintsil to KRC Genk of Belgium.

According to a source close to the club, Tema Youth’s response on Tuesday followed the disqualification of their founder, Wilfred Kwaku Osei, from the GFA presidential election on Friday.

The source said the Election Committee’s decision to disqualify Mr Osei, aka Palmer, from the race compelled the club to come out to set the records straight.

Briefing Graphic Sports Online on Tuesday, the source said the club officially wrote to the GFA to deal directly with it as a member of the association and leave out the founder who is separate as an individual.

It also disclosed that the Tema-based club used the opportunity to furnish the FA with details of correspondence between the club and the Hungary FA regarding the Transfer Matching System (TMS) and the application for the International Transfer Certificate (ITC) for the player.

The source pointed out that the interaction which went on between Tema Youth and the Hungary FA and the failure of the GFA to respond to a request to issue an ITC during the period clearly indicated that it played no role in the player’s transfer to KRC Genk.

It explained that after the GFA’s failure to issue an ITC for the player, the Hungarian FA was obliged to do so but it also failed to deliver within the stipulated time, compelling FIFA to issue a provisional ITC for Paintsil to facilitate his move to the Belgian club.

The source said though the GFA had earlier made Tema Youth to sign an undertaking to pay 300,000 euros to the association subject to the issuing of the ITC, that agreement no longer holds since the GFA failed to issue an ITC to the player.

It will be recalled that the NC mandated lawyer Frank Davies, who later became the chairman of the Vetting Committee, to write to Tema Youth a few months ago to demand a 10 per cent share of Paintsil’s transfer fee of 3million euros based on the undertaing signed by the club.

However, the club failed to respond to the letter on the grounds that the NC’s request was an illegality since the GFA regulations frowned on the association and its members resorting to the lawcourts to resolve conflicts.