Founder of UT Holdings, Prince Kofi Amoabeng
Founder of UT Holdings, Prince Kofi Amoabeng, has said pressures from other sectors of the economy coupled with little or no political will to promote sports would continue to hold back the growth of sports in the country.
The sports budget which stood at GHS36million in 2013 was whittled down to GHS22million, a situation that corroborates Mr Amoabeng’s assertion that too many sectors were looking up to government for support.
“You have limited monies and you need to put them in education. You have health, and all the other sectors clamouring for the same money. Therefore, we take away from sports which we think is more leisurely, although it’s not entirely true. Why you have budget deficits, deficit financing, and the cedi depreciating against the dollar, it’s difficult to realise enough monies for this disciple and, therefore, it suffers,” he explained.
The businessman bemoaned the failure of successive governments in realising the potential of the sports space as far as national development was concerned. In his view, the sports sector was one area the country could capitalise on, as has been done effectively in the developed world.
“The situation is very much different in the developed world but if a country is not developing and making monies available for various sectors, you suffer the same trait. We don’t have the money to pay the players well. We create them, we discover talents, and they go away. If you are watching the Ghana Premier League, you will easily notice the bad nature of the pitches as compared to Europe and other parts of the world. There’s no money to pay for players, no money for infrastructure, and so on. I don’t expect the situation to change until our level of development improves,” he stated.
