FIFA suspends Samuel Inkoom

• Posted on June 23, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Ghanaian footballer, Samuel Inkoom, has been handed a one-year ban from football by FIFA for failing to pay Andrew Evans, a football agent an amount of Euros 352, 500 based on a contract the two parties signed back in 2010. Evans reported Inkoom to FIFA after Inkoom had moved from Basel in Switzerland to Dnipro in Ukraine in 2011 The decision of the ban was communicated to the Bulgarian Football Association on Thursday because Inkoom currently plays his football in Bulgaria with Vereya. Background In 2010, Inkoom and Evans signed a deal to have Evans represent the player in transfer dealings.

The details of the contract stated that Inkoom had to Evans “a fee equal to 10 percent of the player’s basic gross income defined as annual salary plus any guaranteed signing-on fees but excluding any benefits which are not guaranteed.”

Evans reported Inkoom to the FIFA Players’ Status Committee that the player had breached their contract when he was transferred from Basel to Dnipro in 2011 (which was in the second year of their contract).

Between then and 2015, Evans wrote several times to FIFA stating that Inkoom was yet to pay him his money and he was seeking legal redress.

In October, FIFA wrote to the Ghana Football Association and informed it of Inkoom’s failure to pay Evans. The GFA was asked to forward the letter to Inkoom.

However, that did not also work because in November, Evans told FIFA that Inkoom was yet to pay and the GFA was informed on November 17 to “urge Inkoom to pay the money by December 1.”

In December 2014, FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee decided that Inkoom should be given a grace period of 180 days to pay Evans or Evans could activate the option of a one-year ban on Inkoom.

What are Inkoom’s options? None, really. Unless he pays the amount, he will be banned.

FIFA says that if he pays within the ban period, the ban is automatically lifted.

In addition to the Euros 352, 500, Inkoom has to pay a fine of 20,000 Swiss Francs because he failed to respect Article 64 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code which warns against failing to pay another party after a FIFA or CAS ruling.

He must also bear the costs of the legal proceedings which is an amount of 2, 000 Swiss francs.

Is Inkoom a trouble maker? One cannot say but in 2015, the player was sued by Curtis Paul Willette, the owner of a house Inkoom lived in when he played for DC United in the United States.

Inkoom was being asked by Willette to pay an amount of $65,000 in unpaid rent and damage to the property which was in Arlington, Virginia.

Inkoom’s monthly rent stood $3,795 and he was sued in April 2015.

The rent was set to accrue until October of the same year.

Willette told reporters that the house had become “uninhabitable and unshowable”. Inkoom did not stay with DC United for long as he was traded to Houston Dynamo.