Corporate support for Black Stars will enable government save and fund other sports - Minister

The Minister for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif, says the Black Stars attracting corporate support will significantly have a positive impact on funding for other sporting disciplines, which are considered least financed.

The Black Stars and other football national teams, which are solely funded by government, consume the chunk of government's sports allocations, sometimes at the expense of other sports disciplines.

With the Black Stars without a significant corporate sponsor, Mustapha Ussif has launched a special appeal to woo corporate support for the Black Stars and the first programme was a special breakfast meeting with CEOs of some corporate institutions, which was hosted by President Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House on Monday.

At the meeting, Mustapha Ussif explained that corporate support for the Black Stars will not only compliment government's funding of the Black Stars, it will also enable the government to fairly use monies it would have used on the Black Stars to support other disciplines.

"In spite of the appreciable increase in the sports sector's budgetary allocations in the past four years, there is still the need for alternative funding to gurantee sustainable development in sports in the country, and also to help govermment finance the ever-increasing cost of funding our national football teams, especially the Black Stars," Mustapha Ussif said.

"Supporting the funding of the Black Stars will enable government to use our sports budget fairly to support other sporting disciplines, especially as the nation gears up for the Tokyo Olympics in July," he added."

During his parliamentary vetting for the position of Sports Minister, Mustapha Ussif called for alternative funding for sports instead of over reliance on government funding.

He pledged to launch a special appeal to corporate Ghana by selling the Black Stars brand to them, as well as make a case for them to support sports development in various ways.