FIFA banning Ghana won’t happen: Sports Ministry reveals after meeting FIFA

Ghana appears to have scaled the hurdle of a possible ban from FIFA after government moved in to dissolve the country’s football governing body, the Ghana Football Association (GFA), 3news.com has gathered.

A FIFA delegation led by its new Director of Development for Africa and the Caribbean Veron Mosengo-Omba was said to have had a fruitful deliberation with government officials at the offices of the Ministry of Sports on Friday.

The meeting, 3news.com gathered, centered on the dissolution of the FA and how football can be improved in Ghana.

A five-member committee was set-up by the government to replace the Ghana Football Association after investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas exposé caught several members of the FA allegedly collecting bribes on tape.

Government was therefore compelled to suspend all activities of the Football Association as well as barring its officials from undertaking any duty at the offices of the FA to enable further investigations into the matter.

However, the government’s decision seemed to have ruptured FIFA’s rules hence prompting Jean Infantino’s administration to send a delegation to help resolve matters.

The meeting was held between FIFA and government officials without representatives from the GFA.

Though information gleaned from the meeting is scanty, Elvis Adjei Baah, PRO at the Ministry of Youth and sports communicated to a section of the media, concerns that FIFA will ban Ghana won’t happen.

“Ghanaians will be made known as to what transpired in the meeting. At the appropriate time, whatever happened in the meeting will be made known.

“Initially we wanted to postpone the meeting but since FIFA delegation were in the country, we have to show them the respect so we held the meeting.

“The notion that FIFA will ban Ghana is out of the question here. It won’t happen,” he stressed.

The meeting was attended by Godfred Yeboah Dame, Deputy Attorney General; Samuel Abu Jinapor, Deputy Chief of Staff; Isaac Asiamah, Sports Minister; Frank Quist, Chief Director at the Sports Ministry, and Mustapha Hamid, Information Minister.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Football Association (GFA) has challenged the Attorney General’s petition at the High Court seeking for a dissolution of the Association.