The Ghana Football Association (GFA) has denied reports that it spent $800,000 on last month’s international friendlies against Brazil and Nicaragua.
The Black Stars played the aforementioned teams in September, losing 3-0 to the South Americans before recovering to record a narrow 1-0 win against the latter.
The expenses of the team were not something that was up for discussion until earlier on Tuesday when 80 legislators from the Majority Caucus in Parliament called for the sack of Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta.
A commission found that we took money from Govt to play a friendly against the Netherlands in 2014 when the game was organized and fully paid for by an agent. Ghana we dey!
— Fentuo Tahiru Fentuo (@Fentuo_) October 25, 2022
In the wake of the calls, sports journalist Collins Atta Poku disclosed that he had spoken to three of the lawmakers, who confirmed to him that the Finance Minister paid almost $800,000 to the GFA to cover costs for the friendlies against Brazil and Nicaragua.
“Got in touch with 3 Majority MPs who told me they were dismayed to find out the Finance Minister paid almost $800,000 to the Ghana Football Association just last week, in spite of all the challenges we face. The money covers their expenditure in the Brazil and Nicaragua games,” the journalist tweeted.
However, reacting to this, FA boss Kurt Okraku said the report is false and urged the public to disregard such news.
I have just come out of court to read that the Ministry of Finance gave the Ghana FA USD 800,000 to honour two friendly games against Brazil and Nicaragua.
FACT check! This is false. Kindly ignore.
🇬🇭⚽️
— Kurt Edwin Simeon-Okraku (@kurtokraku) October 25, 2022
“I have just come out of court to read that the Ministry of Finance gave the Ghana FA USD 800,000 to honour two friendly games against Brazil and Nicaragua. FACT check! This is false. Kindly ignore,” Mr. Okraku tweeted.
Meanwhile, in a separate statement, GFA described the report as a calculated attempt to smear its name, insisting its lawyers have taken notice of the allegations.
“The attention of our Lawyers has been drawn to a Tweet from Collins Atta Poku (@PapaPoku) on the release of $800,000 to the Ghana Football Association for our recent international friendlies against Brazil and Nicaragua.
Good move please don’t drop the energy when other issues come up for people to speculate because we are in critical times pic.twitter.com/N56c1mSRwj
— Benedict Owusu (@KwesiBenedict) October 25, 2022
“The news is not only FALSE but a calculated lie to pitch the public against the Ghana Football Association, drag our name in the mud and defame the Association.
“We would like to state categorically, that Bank of Ghana has not transferred any amount in relation to our friendly matches against Brazil and Nicaragua to the account of the Ghana Football Association. We would like the public to disregard that frivolous reportage,” the GFA’s statement added.
Quadri Olaitan is a journalist and contributor to Freelanews.com, covering news, public affairs, and human-interest stories.
