Avram Grant close to Stars job
Former Chelsea coach, Avram Grant, is in pole position to become the next Black Stars head coach after scoring high marks during a recent interview supervised by a three-man FA committee.
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The President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kwesi Nyantakyi, told a press conference at the GFA Secretariat yesterday that his outfit was going to engage the 59-year old Israeli on such details as remuneration, job requirement and conditions of service and duly appoint him as the next Stars coach if an agreement was reached between the two parties.
‘The Executive Committee considered the report of the committee that interviewed the coaches and they did a good job by arriving at two of them who were considered to be exceptionally good and meritoriously qualified to be appointed as Black Stars coach.
‘In terms of ranking, Avram Grant ranked highest, followed by Spanish Juan Manuel Jimenez as the second choice. But if we fail to reach an agreement, we will fall on the second person,’ Nyantakyi explained.
GFA petitions Chief Justice
According to him, the delay of the First Capital Plus Premier League due to the ongoing legal dispute between King Faisal and the GFA is of concern to the Executive Committee which has, therefore, petitioned the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, to ensure the speedy adjudication of the case.
‘Nobody can determine how long a case can travel in court but we have made a petition to the Chief Justice to lay out a mechanism to give us an expedited hearing so that the case can be determined as soon as possible to ensure the commencement of the league quickly.”
In view of that, the FA, he revealed, would meet the Chief Justice on Monday, hoping to be given a judge who could handle the case on a day-by-day basis.
‘It is the position of the FA that the case should be pursued to its logical conclusion,’ he stated categorically.
FIFA World Cup money
The FA boss also revealed that the GFA received the World Cup prize money last week, and following an agreement with the government to refund the quantum that was spent on appearance fees for players and officials of the Stars in March, paid $4million to the Minister of Youth and Sports last Thursday.
He disclosed that prior to that, an agreement had been reached with the sports minister for a presentation to be made at a press briefing to return the money to the government chest until it was called off at the eleventh hour.
‘Surprisingly the press briefing was later called off and, later we had a meeting with the minister who said he had received a correspondence from the World Cup commisssion which had asked him to demand the entire money from the GFA,’ he noted.
Mr Nyantakyi said the GFA was waiting to be served with a letter to that effect so it could also respond accordingly.
Kwasi Appiah’s package
He admitted that the FA still owed Coach Kwasi Appiah some money which it had decided to pay as soon as possible to put the matter to a perpetual rest.
He, however, stressed that as far as the Executive Committee was concerned, there was no impasse between the FA and the coach regarding the contractual issue as the severance package had already being paid, leaving bonuses and other remuneration which were being sorted out.