ExCo decision sad for Ghana football — Oly CEO
The Chief Executive Officer of Accra Great Olympics, Mr Oloboi Commodore, has described the decision of the Executive Council of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to cancel the 2019/2020 season as a sad moment for Ghana football.
Mr Commodore said he felt disappointed at the sudden decision, having been vocal on the need for GFA officials and other stakeholders to resume the league after it was suspended in March due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
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GFA decision
The crucial decision was reached after a marathon meeting held at the GFA headquarters last Tuesday.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday, the Olympics CEO suggested that the league should have been abridged to formalise all the results gathered so far because the league had already started and that the pandemic made it difficult for it to continue.
He noted that what happened was a force majeure, hence all the remaining matches should have been played to close the season.
“If the ExCO has cancelled the league in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, are we going to play the 2020/ 2021 season with or without the pandemic cases still increasing? he questioned.
“It would have been better to abridge the league for all the results to stand and allow the first two teams on top of the league to represent Ghana in the CAFChampions League and the Confederation Cup, so a decision would be taken on clubs who find themselves at the bottom of the table,” he explained.
Promotion, demotion and fines
Mr Commodore noted that many Division One clubs had been seeking qualification to the premiership in the past three seasons but the ‘Number 12’ exposé by Tiger Eye PI and the pandemic made it impossible.
“Clubs have spent money on players and are not getting any benefit from their investment,” he lamented.
The football administrator questioned the rationale behind the GFA’s decision to expunge all records associated with the season and emphasised that all fines accruing to the teams also needed not to be honoured.
“If no records would be available on the 2019/2020 season, it cannot be possible for a club to pay any fine.”
Effect on clubs
According to Mr Commodore, plans of his club had been thrown overboard with the cancellation and that all the measures taken for the year would be affected.
“We need to be compensated by the GFA. We have invested a lot of resources for the season and it cannot go waste because the league has been called off”.
