Dear Ghana Football Association (GFA) President Kurt Okraku.
To borrow the cliché in our football fraternity, I bring you sporting compliments. I hope this letter finds you in good health. Regardless of your challenges, especially with Covid-19 a few months after assuming office, you’ve not been deterred. That’s good.
It’s also good that under your leadership, we’ve completed, for the first time, an entire league season since #12 struck in June 2018. I further applaud your administration for sealing some decent sponsorships for the Ghana Premier League (GPL) and the Women’s Premier League recently.
I know you want the growth of Ghana football. I recall your well-delivered speech at the 26th Ordinary Congress of the GFA in August 2020 – where you appealed to members to desist from badmouthing their product. You seemed indignant that a few people thwarted your efforts through negative commentaries.
"There are a few of us who go out of this family and go out to the public space to malign your product, my product, your business…” you stated. “I go to corporate Ghana daily preaching Ghana football; yet some of us, just a few of us, damage the image of the product…We must say no to such people," you added.
You were right. I’ve held that no group of people disparage our football more than some of your own. At times, I wonder why you, who’ve invested so much in the game, would turn around either inadvertently or consciously to destroy it through your conduct – words, actions, inactions, etc.
“We must say no to such people,” you said, Mr President. In this case, saying no means letting GPL fans know the outcome of the GFA’s summoning of Albert Commey on his allegation that there was multiple match-fixing on the final day of the 2021/22 season.
Silence, not yours, Mr President, but the GFA’s silence for more than six weeks now does no good to the GPL. A respected member of the FA like Albert Commey can’t make such a damning claim, and months on, and indeed, a few weeks to the start of a new season, the GFA is still silent on the allegation.
It’s nothing personal. It’s all in the interest of the game. What has become of Albert Commey’s allegation? Did his allegation has any substance? You punished coaches for certain remarks; would Albert Commey be punished? Was his allegation frivolous? Was it therefore dismissed? Is it being probed? GPL fans must know.
In the spirit and letter of your 26th Ordinary Congress speech, which fervently prayed on your own to reject negative remarks on our football because of the damage it does, I humbly ask: What’s the status of Albert Commey’s multiple match-fixing allegations?
Keen GPL fans want to know.
Yours truly,
Jerome Otchere, Accra.