Five sins of Kurt Okraku’s GFA according to Palmer

Half a year into Kurt Okraku’s four-year mandate and judgment has already been passed on his stewardship of Ghana football.

In his first major media interaction since he was booted out of GFA race by the Normalization Committee, Wilfred Osei Kwaku well known as Palmer has passed a verdict on Kurt Okraku’s GFA and it’s a damming one.

Below are five of the numerous mistakes of the GFA, Palmer has found.

Failure to unite football people

The post-election period was expected to be one of unification with all misunderstandings buried for the good of Ghana football.

The show of brotherliness and fraternization that characterized the campaign period was supposed to manifest itself in the new GFA but that has been made impossible by Kurt Okraku.

According to Palmer, experienced figures who could have helped Ghana football have been sidelined by Kurt Okraku because they belong to opposing camps.

Decision to start league

Palmer also found fault with the FA’s decision to commence the league despite being ill-prepared and lacking the funds to take care of needs of the eighteen clubs.

He posits that the FA should have delayed the start of the season and ensure that clubs who were coming out of the financial difficulties associated with number 12 had enough funds to last the entire season.

He suggested the FA could have held talks with CEO of corporations and explain to them the importance of the league to their brand.

Broadcast deal

GFA’s decision to entrust the broadcasting rights of the GPL into the hands of StarTimes alone was wrong, Palmer thinks so.

The Tema Youth chief avers that separate deals could have been struck with all interested television stations for each of them to show a specific number of games. The FA was wrong to go with StarTimes alone, Palmer said.

Asking for financial relief from the govt Instead of demanding financial assistance from the government to deal with the impact of coronavirus on the club, the GFA could have made proposals for the scrapping of taxes and deductions on club revenue.

Osei Palmer advanced that instead of financial demands, the FA should consult all stakeholders in the industry and present a policy document to the government.

Illegal monies

Palmer says the FA’s expenses are all illegal as congress is yet to approve the financial budget for the association.

He says standard procedure requires the FA seek the approval of the congress before embarking on any expenditure but nothing of that sort happened in the last congress held at the Ghanaman Soccer Centre of Excellence in Prampram.