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King Faisal and Olympics return to Ghana Premier League
Alhaji Karim Gruzah - Owner of King Faisal

King Faisal and Olympics return to Ghana Premier League

Delegates at the Extraordinary Congress of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) have accepted a proposal by the Normalisation Committee to increase the number of clubs who participate in the Ghana Premier League to 18 from 16 for the 2019/21 season.

For over two decades, 16 clubs have contested for honours in Ghana's topflight but this will change heading into the 2019/20 season after 64 of an expected 120 delegates voted in support of the decision.

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The beneficiaries of the vote are Division One League clubs Accra Great Olympics and King Faisal Babes. Both clubs have longstanding cases against the GFA in Ghana's courts.

Olympics

It will be recalled that Olympics placed an injunction start of the 2017/ 2018 Ghana Premier League season after a case they presented against Bechem United for fielding an unqualified player was thrown out by the FA.

They advocated for a points-deduction for Bechem in line with the FA’s statutes. The deduction would have saved Olympics from relegation.

The FA, at the time, said the case had been filed outside the stipulated 3-day window prescribed in the statutes.

Subsequently, Olympics took the issue to the law courts where they lost the case ultimately.

Olympics’ issue with the GFA was that Bechem United’s Joseph Amoah was not qualified to play against them on the final day of the 2016/ 2017 season in a match they lost and wound up in the Division One League.

However, Amoah’s status as an unqualified player was down to an administrative error on the part of referee Reginald Lathbridge.

Earlier in the season, Lathbridge handled a match between Elmina Sharks and Bechem United and mistakenly wrote in his match report that it was Amoah he had booked. Subsequent yellow cards meant that Amoah should not have played against Olympics on the last day of the season.

Ref Lathbridge was banned for life for his error after he tried changing the match records 7 months later.

King Faisal

King Faisal suffered relegation in 2014 but they sought legal redress, arguing that Aduana Stars FC had failed to pay a fine and thus, needed to be punished.

King Faisal lost at the GFA’s Disciplinary and Appeals Committee. It later went to the law courts to have the FA punish Aduana Stars by deducting points; a situation which would have saved Faisal from relegation.

Implications

The development means that five teams would be relegated next season and three would be promoted from the Division One League as the number of participating clubs would revert to 16 for the following season.

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