Neil Armstrong eyes Nyantakyi's seat

As the football fraternity in Ghana inches closer to elect another president for the Ghana Football Association (GFA), speculative reports about who are in interested

in the position will not be in short supply. A day after news broke that he habours the ambition to contest for the presidency of the GFA, Ghana soccer legend, Abedi Pele Ayew has pooh-poohed the reports, saying they must not be taken seriously.

But on the day Abedi Pele decided to rubbish those reports, another football personality in the country, Neil Armstrong Mortagbe, a former Chairman of the National Chapters Committee of Accra Hearts of Oak, and now a FIFA Management Consultant and Marketer, has declared his intention to contest Kwesi Nyantakyi for the FA position.

Mortagbe is of the conviction that his current role as a FIFA Management Consultant and with its concomitant advantage of having direct and unfettered access to other Football Associations on the African continent will enable him to gently jostle Kwesi Nyantakyi, new CAF Executive Committee member out of office.

The former Chairman of the National Chapters Committee may be waxing confident that he would be able to win the elections ahead of Nyantakyi, but he must also be first to admit that it would not be an easy race, as it will be akin to a man challenging the horse to a race.

Neil Armstrong may have a direct and unfettered access to fourteen Football Associations on the continent, but truth be told that those associations are not necessarily the ones to do the voting here in Ghana.

For a clue as to how arduous the task he has set for himself is, Neil should jog his memory back to the overwhelming support Nyantakyi enjoyed, and total condemnation the unhealthy move by the government to nominate Abedi Pele to contest the CAF Executive Committee elections attracted from the masses, and map out strategies that could earn him the position.

That support and condemnation, doubtless, may have come as a result of what many who opposed the government's move, saw as a violation of FIFA's statutes that frown on governmental interference in football matters. This is what may have emboldened Neil Armstrong to test the waters to see just how he would fare against Kwesi Nyantakyi, who has since his election as FA President in 2005 endeared himself to many, just as there are others who also abhor the manner the local game has fared under his watch.

The last time Vincent Odotei Sowah tried challenging Nyantakyi to the post, he was given a convincing whip, but he has not given up hope, as since that time, he has not relented in being critical of the Nyantakyi administration.

Well, he lost miserably to Kwesi Nyantakyi, but as the football fraternity trudges towards the elections later in the year, the question is, just how will Neil Armstrong-Mortagbe fare against the newly-elected CAF Executive member? May be, just may be, he may prove to be a different kettle of fish for Kwesi Nyantakyi. But time will definitely tell.