Commonwealth Games scandal: GOC Vice President denies sending family members to Australia

The Vice President of the Ghana Olympics Committee (GOC), Paul Atchoe has denied reports that he included some of his relatives in the list submitted by the GOC for the Commonwealth Games currently ongoing in Gold Coast, Australia.

As the search for the culprits in the Australia visa scandal continues, reports emerged on Tuesday, April 10 suggesting that Paul Atchoe who doubles as the President of the Ghana Beach Volley Association fictitiously registered some fake persons as players and officials of Ghana’s Volleyball team even though the team failed to qualify for the games.

The report further alleged that Paul Atchoe registered two of his relatives namely; Sampson Atchoe and Martin Atchoe as officials of Ghana’s volleyball team.

But in an exclusive interview with GhanaWeb TV, Paul Atchoe debunked the report, describing it as malicious and an attempt to destroy his image.

“It's never true that I sent a volleyball team and my family members to Australia. I have had a lot of calls about the stories and I explained to them that beach volleyball has never qualified for the Commonwealth Games in Australia".

"The system that operate around the qualification is such that federations are allowed to put in what we call a temporal list which goes before playing the elimination matches once we don’t have qualify your name can no longer be in the system so you can’t register anybody. I believe if there’s anybody who did it at all, the system will not allow it. None of the names on that list moved to Australia. This is an attempt by someone to tarnish our image”, he said.

BNI releases two suspects on bail

Two staff of the National Sports Authority (NSA) who have been implicated in the running saga of the visa racketeering for fake journalists and other questionable athletes and deported by the Australian authorities have been granted bail after a brief detention by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

Hussein Akuetteh Addy and Ms Christine Ashley were detained by the BNI last Friday upon their arrival in Ghana from Australia and stayed in detention until Monday evening before being bailed.

Graphic Sports report that it took the intervention of some top officials of the NSA to get the duo bailed.