One question that has often faced followers of the Glo Ghana Premier League is why there is virtually no punishment for the culprits even though bribery and match-fixing allegations are rampant. In fact, ArkSports investigations have revealed that another match-fixing plot is in the offing when league leaders Ashantigold visit regional rivals Asante Kotoko on Sunday.
Match fixing is now wandering in our Glo-premier league and is almost an everyday situation but the GFA’s syndrome of no punishment for lack of evidence has largely encouraged the practice to go on.
The latest news in town is that the clubs have now adopted a new strategy of fixing matches: bribes are now passed to players of opposing teams. They are no more dealing with referees, neither team officials but rather directly with the players themselves.
Kessben FC suspended five of their key players including captain Richard Agyei on the pretext of gross insubordination, so they told the world. But reliable sources within the club have indicated the action was because the suspended players had allegedly collected bribes from opponents New Edubiase for Kessben’s 5-1 home loss. Toothless bulldog as they are, the FA did nothing about this with the excuse of lack of evidence.
Players of Bofoakwa Tano have come out to claim that management of their club sold their Division One League game to Union Rovers for an amount of 2,000 Ghana Cedis at Techiman. Ghanaweb, SportsInGhana.com, 90 MINUTES and a couple of newspapers carried this story but the lack of evidence anthem from the Division One League Board made the case a nonsense one.
The latest bribery scandal to hit town involves relegation threatened Sekondi Eleven Wise who have now accused four of their players namely Prince Appiah, Eric Owusu, Kotei Blankson and Stephen Edu as those who have caused the team’s downfall. They are alleged to have collected bribes for Wise’s 2-2 draw with Ashgold, 1-1 draw with New Edubiase as well as last Sunday’s 2-3 home loss to Kessben FC.
Management and the club’s Board of Directors are accordingly meeting to appropriately punish these players but our GFA will only go to work upon a club’s lodge of protest and paying of protest fee. Unless that is done before they can start their investigation forgetting that the punishment of Juventus, AC Milan and all the teams involved in the 2006 Italian league match-fixing scandal was based just on telephone conversation. They Italians have now started investigation again on mere suspicion.
It is for this reason that the GFA need to be alert on this Sunday’s upcoming match between Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Ashantigold at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium. ArkSports investigation have discovered that there is a plot intended to fix the match and that will be the case should Ashgold manage to escape with even a draw.
Kofi Wayo, who is Kotoko’s Sunyani representative, said live on radio that Kotoko supporters in Sunyani have formed ‘Friends of Ashgold’ and that they will support Ashgold on Sunday for Kotoko to lose the game. The motive is to prevent Hearts of Oak from winning the league and consequently equaling Kotoko’s record of most league title wins.
Clearly, it is likely that the match is going to be fixed that is why the GFA must act competently, be alert to seriously monitor the game in Kumasi to avert any irregularities.
