FIFA-Ghana Gov’t Talks: Normalisation Committee to replace GFA EXCO

• Posted on August 16, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

World football governing body, FIFA, together with the Government of Ghana and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) will set up a normalization committee to run Ghana football to replace the current Executive Committee of the Ghana FA.

The decision also means that government would have to discontinue its dissolution case against the Ghana FA in court per FIFA directives from the meeting.

This was the major decision taken when the Ghana government met with officials of FIFA in Zurich on Thursday.

The meeting was called for by the government after it received a threat from FIFA over a ban from international football on Monday.

FIFA said that government’s decision to dissolve the Ghana FA through the court was seen as interference and that was against FIFA’s rules.

But Ghana’s government said that it had to deal with corruption as per the constitution while respecting FIFA’s laws.

Thus, the meeting was set up to discuss the way forward in order to satisfy both parties.

FIFA’s decision to set up a normalization committee is not different from what has occurred in countries such as Cameroon in times past, and the committee would have to work out a timetable and a road-map to get new executives elected to form a new Executive Committee of the FA.

With that in line, FIFA said after the meeting that, it will together with the government of Ghana, establish a task-force to root out corruption in Ghana football.

Another fallout of the meeting was that a joint task-force would be created to put together disciplinary and auditing mechanisms to check and punish perpetrators of wrongdoing in football per Ghana’s laws and FIFA statutes.

How did we get here?

On June 7, investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, aired a documentary “Number 12” on corruption in football in Ghana, and some leading figures including FA boss, Kwesi Nyantakyi, were seen allegedly taking part in some corrupt acts.

As a response, the Ghana government asked for the arrest of Kwesi Nyantakyi on the charge of defrauding by false pretense based on utterances he made on the tape.

Kwesi Nyantakyi then resigned from his position as Ghana FA boss and also from CAF.

FIFA also provisionally suspended Nyantakyi for 90 days as a result of the tape.

The Ghana government went ahead to secure a court injunction on the Ghana FA as the first step of a process that was to lead to the eventual liquidation of the Ghana FA under the Companies Act since the FA was registered as such.

As all of that happened, a freeze was put on Ghana football and that has not changed until present.