Battle for Wassaman United intensifies

Wassaman United, one of the impending new entrants in the Ghana Premier League that is to start on October 9, is facing a battle of businesses who want to buy it.

There are two entities at the forefront of the rat race to buy Wassaman United. A business consortium fronting for Real Tamale United (RTU), a huge traditional club based in the north of Ghana, is one of them. And then there’s the business mogul, Isaac Tetteh, who wants to buy Wassaman and rename it PureJoy Stars.


To provide some context, it is usual in Ghana for businessmen to sell their clubs to others who would want to rename them. But why do the owners of Wassaman want to sell when they have struggled to qualify for the Premier League? That is because Michael Armah, the owner of the team, is the brother of Moses, owner of a team already in the Ghana Premier League, Medeama SC.


For the Armahs, selling Wassaman United would be good business.


RTU were relegated in the just ended season for the first time in their history and this means the Northern Region of Ghana would have no representative in the coming league season. For RTU, buying Wassaman has several benefits.


Considering that the Northern Region is the biggest in Ghana, RTU’s demise potentially has huge political and economic ramifications. Some have even hinted that the inability of the club to be in the next season is a sign that Ghana’s ruling government would lose the general election in 2012, since the region is usually their stronghold.

In the past few weeks, the business consortium fronting for RTU had been said to be in the lead to buy Wassaman, which quoted an asking price of GHC 200,000 ($130,000).


As it stands, the business consortium is reported to have pulled out of negotiations because they believe the figure too steep. Their potential withdrawal will be the impetus for Isaac Tetteh and his PureJoy Stars franchise to table a good price.


Legally, PureJoy would have some hurdles to surmount. Wassaman United is located in the Tarkwa area of Ghana’s western Region, while PureJoy is in the Greater Accra Region, where the country’s capital is located. By the rules of the Ghana Football Association and the Division One League Board, a team cannot leave the zone in which it was first registered.


This means that even if PureJoy is successfully renamed as Wassaman United in the future or vice versa, Isaac Tetteh would be unable to move the team’s base to Accra, his preferred base of operation.


The only solution would be for Wassaman to be renamed – or the name maintained – while it operates from its current base in Tarkwa.