Following the decision by the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) to withdraw the recognition of Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi to host international matches, which has actually embarrassed us as a nation, President Akufo-Addo decided to take decisive action by terminating the appointment of the Director General of the National Sports Authority, Mr Dodzie Numekevor.
The letter terminating the DG’s appointment, which was made public, did not state the reason why he was being removed from office. It is, however, on record that all the national sports stadia, which are under the direct supervision of the NSA, are not in the best of shape. Apart from the playing pitch at Baba Yara stadium, which CAF complained bitterly about, the African football governing body also raised serious concerns about the standard of the washrooms, referee changing room and the technical bench area.
Though CAF had overlooked these poor facilities at the stadium and allowed the senior national team, the Black Stars, to use the stadium to host international matches, The Chronicle suspects the way the national team coach of Angola complained about the poor pitch, might have been the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
But the big question is; why did the NSA sit down for the pitch to deteriorate to necessitate the ban? It is instructive to note that a few weeks to the hosting of Angola, the supervising authority – the NSA – took money from religious bodies to use the stadium for events. By the time the programme was over, the pitch had gone beyond repairs.
Though the NSA claimed to have brought the pitch back to its original state, any good observer will agree with us that it was very bumpy and not suitable for the game of football. Indeed, that was not the first time NSA had rented out the stadium for commercial purposes. Both Baba Yara and Accra Sports Stadium and lately the Aliu Mahama Stadium in Tamale have been rented out for religious and entertainment activities on numerous occasions.
At the end of these religious and musical shows, the pitches are destroyed, making it very difficult to play the game of football on it. Despite the public criticisms against these unacceptable decisions, the NSA kept repeating the act of renting out the stadia, in the name of raising funds to maintain the state owned stadia. Regrettably, despite all these revenues that have accrued to the NSA, our stadia are still not up to standard to host CAF sanctioned matches.
Now the Ghana Premier League has started and the NSA has come to add to the woes of the already suffering league by closing down both Baba Yara and Accra Sports stadia. If we have an authority that thinks about the development of football, which is the passion of the nation, all these useless decisions would not have been taken.
It is in the light of these developments, which we have enumerated above, that we fully support the dismissal of the NSA boss. His failure to maintain the stadia has really soiled the image of this football loving nation abroad.
Whilst we commend the president for his swift action, we are surprised that he left the Sports Minister, Mustapha Ussif, off the hook.
Even though the maintenance of the state owned stadia comes under direct supervision of the NSA, Minister Ussif is the overall boss. He must, therefore, bear the consequences of the actions taken by his subordinates.
Mustapha Ussif cannot convince The Chronicle that he did not hear the way sports journalists and the public as a whole were criticising the use of the pitches by churches and musicians for their shows. As the political head, it should have occurred to him that such decisions could have serious implications on our national security, but he ignored them.
Football in Ghana is religiously followed by the youth and now that the stadia have been closed down, where does Mr Ussif expect them to watch their idol clubs – Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko? Also, has the sports minister sat down to analyse the political implication of the Black Stars playing their home matches on foreign land?
In our opinion, Mr Mustapha Ussif has failed terribly as a sports minister and should have been fired alongside the NSA boss, but why he is still at post is a puzzle we are trying to solve.
