Q& A with Kwasi Nyantakyi (GFA President)

IN today's edition of the interview spot, 90 MINUTES newspaper brings to our cherished readers an exclusive interview with the President of the Ghana Football Association, Mr. Kwasi Nyantakyi, who shares his thoughts on the just ended 2008/9 soccer season. The FA capo talked about the just ended GLO Premier League, hooliganism, the Black Stars and most importantly, the relationship between the Sports ministry and that of his federation. Below are excerpts.Â

90 MINUTES: The 2008/09 GLO premier league has come to an end. As the President of the Ghana Football Association, what is your general overview of the championship? Kwasi Nyantakyi: Well, I think the league was well organized as the participating teams gave a good account of themselves. I guess this was partly because GLO pumped in a lot of money by way of sponsorship which provided a level playing ground for all the clubs. For me, the league was keenly contested to the extent that even before the last round of matches, the winner and those up for relegation were not known. Â With 10 matches to go, there were reports of bribery allegations here and there. Would that raise question marks about its competitive nature? These were mere rumours because there were no evidence in those reported bribery allegations. If you want to act on rumours alone, you might find yourself on the wrong side of the law. I expect that when people have evidence of any form of wrongdoing, they should come forward with the evidence in order to help us really deal with the situation. Otherwise, we might be chasing innocent people at the end of the day.

How did you see spectatorship and officiating during the league? Spectatoring improved as compared to that of last season but we still have a long way to go. I believe with the excitement that the just ended league generated, we would be able to improve on spectatorship. With officiating, there was also an improvement. We did not achieve the best but there was a remarkable improvement. I think we demonstrated that we would not condone mediocrity in officiating or any wrongdoing on the part of referees. This year alone, about three or four referees were axed for incompetency and we would continue with such practices in the future. We are also reviewing the performances of the referees which would make it possible for us to reduce the number of officiating referees next season.

As president of the Ghana Football Association, what runs through you mind when hooliganism still shows off at our various league centres? It is a mark of barbarism which does not give a good account of a league that is played in the 21st century. I believe in the law and when such things happen, the law should be allowed to take its course. Matters relating to hooliganism have been referred to the disciplinary committee for the necessary action in the past. The security agencies have also got a huge role in curbing the act of hooliganism at match centres. Some measures have been put in place concerning security at the various stadia that we hope would go a long way in bringing sanity during matches.

Hearts of Oak have won their 20th premiership title but what is happening to the likes of Tema Youth who are hell bent of staying up after lodging an appeal? What is certain is that three clubs are going to be relegated and whichever the clubs are, I cannot tell. I know that as part of the judicial review process, Tema Youth made an appeal and that appeal is yet to be determined. When that is done, we would then get to know which teams would be relegated and those who would be staying up come next season.

Now to the Black Stars. We already have 9 points from three games in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers. What are your impressions? Until we qualify, we shouldn't take anything for granted. We need to focus on the remaining games and not to take our legs off the pedal because we are more than determined to qualify for the World Cup finals. The Federation is bent on doing whatever possible to make qualification a certainty as we seek 4 more points to make it to South Africa 2010.Â

So what has your outfit put in place to make sure that we win the remaining matches as football does not follow logic? We have won two away games which is ample testimony that we can win the away game against Benin together with the 2 home games. Remember that if we get 4 points out of the remaining 9, we should be able to reach the finals in South Africa. However, we will try and get all the 9 points.

In your opinion, have you been justified in entrusting the Stars job to Milovan Rajevac after the initial criticisms? I think it should be obvious to all by now that Milo is a competent coach. When we chose him and people were making noise without any reasonable basis about his competence, we knew he could deliver. He has proven his worth with time by winning games to prove his critics wrong. We knew what we wanted with his abilities and experience and he in turn has not disappointed at all. For me, he has done well and I think he is the right man for the job.

After the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals in Germany, Ghana was named as the 13th best team in that tournament. In your assessment, have we been able to live up to such a billing? I believe so! Even with the FIFA rankings, we went as far as to occupy the 15th position in the world which has been the best ever ranking in the history of Ghana football which shows that we were not listed 13th for the sake of it but on merit. After the World Cup, we have given a very good account of ourselves as a team in a number of both friendly and competitive matches. The team has also grown in strength and depth and as you could see, there are other up and coming players who have shown and demonstrated the capacity to play for the Black Stars. This defines the team as one that can rely on both the established and the young upcoming stars. Against this backdrop, I believe we can go to South Africa and even improve on it. With the young chaps, I think Kwadwo Asamoah has been the most outstanding player with the Black Stars so far.Â

What is the relationship between the FA and the Sports Ministry? We enjoy an excellent working relationship with the ministry. The ministry as the representative of Government has been very supportive of our programmes with timely releases of funding for our activities. They have been co-operating and collaborating very well with the federation to execute our programmes and I think that is what FIFA expects and they are doing exactly that. In terms of relationships, nothing has changed much from the previous and the current government; it's just a change of political leaderships.

Finals word to Ghanaians… We need their support in whatever way that they can to help move the game to the greater heights that we all desire. They should pray and support the various national teams and we would also in turn do our best to bring success to the nation.