Dissolve inept GFA - Abbey Pobee calls

The current administrators of Ghana football should be sacked, football administrator Jonathan Abbey Pobee has said.

Mr Pobee blamed Ghana’s inability to qualify to the finals of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, after suffering a two-nil defeat at the hands of Cameroon in the semis, on the ineptitude of the Ghana Football Association (GFA).

In his view, Ghana should follow the Nigerian example and fire the executives of the GFA if Ghana is to ever win an AFCON title again.

“I have been appealing to football people or those Executive Committee members that they should put a vote of no confidence in this current administration. We have to sack them as Nigeria did. The same thing happened in Nigeria and they were able to vote them out, so we have to do something here. We have to go with the Nigeria style. They did it and then immediately their bonuses were slashed from $10,000 to $5000 and then they won the African Cup. That’s the way to go because it can’t be possible to have 14 ministers in two regimes, it’s not correct,” he told Moro Awudu on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Friday February 3.

“The GFA is not following its own rules and regulations. Here we are, we have rules and regulations but when cases get to the disciplinary committee, we overturn the decisions. An example is Tema Youth case and then recently we’ve seen what is going on in our football. Even article 73, the public interest committee which is in our statute books, is not being utilised. The question you must ask yourself is why? We have 31 committees [under] the Ghana Football Association in our statutes, all the 30 statutes are working [except for] only the public interest committee. For 12 years, it has never worked. And the title of this committee is the Public Interest Committee, which looks at the interest of the public and that one is not working. So I will attribute [the downfall of Ghana football] to mismanagement.”

Touching on the game against Cameroon, Mr Pobee said: “We did well yesterday, we played one of the best football, so I don’t blame the players and the coach for losing. It’s beyond what we are seeing because we don’t have good managers managing football in this country.

“For the past years, about 70 per cent of the Ghanaian populace no longer support the Black Stars until Nana Akufo-Addo came to slash down the winning bonus from $10,000 to $5,000 then they won back the support from Ghanaians. So all of us were supporting Black Stars when all of a sudden this goalkeeper Brimah also came with his insults. So all these things… contributed to our loss yesterday.”