Ben Koufie Flares At La Danso

Ghana Football Association chairman Mr. Ben Koufie yesterday had his temper high up against his colleague member La Danso who dared to remark that the dreaded Charles Taylor status saga should be the chairman's cup of tea for insisting that the player's fate had not been decided yet.

With repeated thumping of the high table, which resonance through the corridors of the FA secretariat, Ben Koufie did not hide his abhorrence of the behaviour of La Danso who is accused of leaking out a decision of the management board of the FA on the status of Taylor.

While La Danso maintains that The Association had decided that Taylor would be free after paying the fines imposed on him and serving his suspension.

Ben Koufie says no such decision had ever been made and wondered why La Danso should be the person to break that news publicly when no statement to that effect had been officially issued.

What even taxed the chairman's temper most was Mr. La Danso's rebuttal on radio that if Ben Koufie would insist that there was no decision on Taylor, then it is his cup of tea.

It took the intervention of the chairman of the council, Y. A. Ibrahim and other members at the meeting to calm Ben Koufie down.

Fortunately, several members of the meeting seemed to agree with him that minutes of the management board should only be communicated to interested parties through official channels.

The three-and-half-hour-long meeting of the Executive Council of the Ghana Football Association rose without any major decision, according to insiders.

Issues dealt with included the performance of the national teams, the relationship between the FA and the Referees Association of Ghana and the need for the FA to build its own reserve of referees to curtail incidents such as heralded the premier league when a boycott nearly marred the opening games. The Council chairman, Y. A. Ibrahim also briefed the meeting.

On the performance of the national teams, a member suggested that the real picture of the non or late provision of resources by governments accounting for the dismal performance of the national teams be told the sporting public.

The member held that a lot of blame is wrongly put on the FA for the recent poor performances of the national teams instead of the blame going to the government, who are the sponsors of the teams.

Taylor's issue was not part of the scheduled agenda but came up nonetheless to somehow overshadow the rest of the deliberations.