GFA staff remain unpaid

Finder Sports can confirm that workers of the Ghana Football Association remain unpaid, two months after government closed down the premises and declared it a crime scene in the wake of the Anas Aremeyaw Anas exposé into the corrupt practices with Ghana football. As reported by Finder Sports some weeks ago, most staff of the Football Association are worried about the safety and security of their jobs following the impasse between the government and the association. Last month, the liaison team, put together by CAF/FIFA to ensure that Ghana is able to compete in internationally organized games allegedly met with the staff to assure them that their salaries will be paid, but that meeting we are told yielded no fruits with the GFA staff more concerned about their job security than being paid for the month of June. The staff thus remain at home, not certain when they will be allowed back to work and when they will be paid. Currently, the government of Ghana is determined to liquidate the GFA after the premiering of the video of the investigative piece by Anas Aremeyaw Anas on corruption in Ghana Football on June 6. All domestic football activities have all grind to a halt with no clear idea when it will return or if it will return at all. Subsequently, the account of the GFA was frozen to prevent any financial transaction by the association.

In an interview with the media after the premises was declared a crime scene, some aggrieved members of staff noted that they were astonished at the government’s decision to deny innocent workers of the association access to work, while employees of the National Sports Authority (NSA) were still at post though the chief executive of the NSA and some workers were also implicated in the Anas video.

They described that as an unfair treatment to them, especially where most of the Anas video only captured a few executive committee members of the GFA and not members of staff of the association.

“We are yet to know whether our jobs and salaries are secured after the association’s account was frozen to prevent any financial transaction due to the government’s decision to dissolve the GFA,” a GFA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

FIFA/CAF in consultation with the government of Ghana has agreed to set up a Normalization Committee to steer the affairs of the GFA and maybe when that comes into effect the staff will be paid their salaries.