GFA suspends Eastern Regional league

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) has suspended the commencement of the 2002/2003 Eastern Regional Second Division Football season indefinitely.

This was contained in a letter sent to the Eastern Regional Football Association (ERFA) and signed by Mr Kofi Nsiah, the General Secretary of the GFA. According to the GFA, the suspension was to give time for the settlement of issues raised by Highlanders Football Club, one of the 39 second-division football clubs in the region.

Information available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) indicates that Highlanders had forwarded their protest to the GFA without copying the ERFA. On receipt of the protest, signed by Mr Geoffrey Oteng-Arthur, chairman of the division two campaigners and also a member of GFA executive council, the GFA did not seek the version of the ERFA on the issues raised by Highlanders F/C but halted the league indefinitely.

The letter to the GFA dated June 5 complained that Highlanders never received an invitation to the regional congress of the second division clubs in Eastern Region, which was organised on May 20, this year to arrange fixtures for the season. They claimed the club had also not received minutes of the previous congress of the ERFA, the accounts of the Regional Football Association for the previous year and had no information on the number of clubs that had been relegated from the league.

According to them, as at the time of writing their letter, they were aware that the Regional Second Division Football League was to commence on 23 June, but they had not received any fixtures. The letter said no member of the GFA was invited to the regional congress of the ERFA while the financial statement of the association had not been deposited with the GFA as required by FA regulations.

The club therefore called on the GFA to nullify the congress, re-organise the ERFA and ensure that all programmes of the ERFA were approved by the GFA before implementation.

Sources close to the GNA however, indicate that, officials of 35 out of the 39 football clubs participating in the regional second division football league took part in the congress of 20 May, and the invitation to the Highlanders F/C to the congress was in fact sent and delivered by hand at their base at Aburi.