GMA urges GFA to cancel 2019/20 football season due to coronavirus

The General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association(GMA), Dr Justice Yankson, says the 2019/20 Ghana football season should be truncated due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) is engaging clubs over the suspension of the 2019/20 football season due to the pandemic and must also report to CAF on the future of the league by May 5, 2020.

There have been concerns on whether the league season should be continued or be truncated, while health experts have also advised that football should hold until September 2020.

According to some health experts, there could be a second wave of the COVID-19 if measures are not put in place should the game return in the shortest possible time.

Speaking in an interview on Happy Sports, with Ohene-Bampoe Brenya, on Happy 98.9FM, on whether football should be cancelled or not, Dr Justice Yankson is of the view that football should be suspended until there is a clear path for the games to resume after COVID-19.

“At this point in line with measures by the President, we will be breaching the rules if football is allowed to go on. Football is a contact game, and one of the preventive measures is to practice social distancing. As it stands now, we haven’t been able to reduce the community spread, and in line with what FIFA and the UEFA have done, we should hasten slowly and try not to play the game as soon as possible.”

“The more the season prolongs without matches it will be better to consider and start a new season. Even with the current season due to the challenges with Normalisation, we were trying to do a crush program and now there is Covid-19. So this will give us another opportunity for us to prepare well for another season”.

Dr Justice Yankson added that the health authorities will guide the GFA in determining when it’s safe for football to return.

“The health officials will help and guide the authorities on when football should return. As it stands now, it is very difficult to predict when football should return. We are hoping the cases will not increase and we should all abide by the protocols so football can return soon.”