Sports Ministry wrote to BNI to investigate ‘corrupt’ Ghana League – Pius Hadzide

Youth and Sports Minister Isaac Asiamah became so concerned with allegations of corruption in the Ghana Premier League to the extent that he petitioned the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to investigate the league, his immediate past deputy, Pius Hadzide has revealed.

Ghana football under former GFA President Kwesi Nyantakyi was constantly hit with allegations of corruption from club administrators, footballers, journalists and almost everyone with connection to football in the country.

These allegations ranged from match-fixing by clubs and betting companies to bribery and bias officiating by referees appointed to handle matches.

The corruption tag that became synonymous with the Ghana Premier League became a headache for the man appointed by the President to oversee the administration of sports in the country.

The Minister who could no longer stomach the allegations took the initiative to petition the BNI to investigate the league.

“This situation of match-fixing, bribery in football is not something that as a ministry we were unconcerned about or we did nothing about. The minister was very concerned and I recall as far back as November 2017, he had reasons to instruct me to write to the BNI to investigate allegations of match-fixing and corruption in Ghana football and I did. This was even before the Anas expose. We wrote a letter instructing the BNI because they the proper capacity and authority to investigate” Pius told GhanaWeb Sports editor, Daniel Oduro.

NDC government planned to unseat Nyantakyi

The move by the next Sports Minister is not the first of its kind.

His predecessor, Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM disclosed that his Ministry in collaboration with the Economic and Organised Crime Office had developed a dossier about Nyantakyi and the Ghana Premier League and were prepared to probe him had the NDC retained power.

“Yes, it was something we had planned to do, because if it was becoming impossible to get the support of those concerned, then it was better we take the radical approach if only it would help to get things done and improve football in the country," Nii Lantey said while answering a question posed to him in that regard. I did some work with EOCO on him and we had a full dossier about Nyantakyi”.