By Ken Bediako
The GFA ruling to demote Premier league club Ashgold to the second division for alleged match fixing is destructive and retrogressive. I am convinced it is not in the interest of football promotion. The sages say you don’t throw away the baby with the bath water. And it’s not advisable to cut your nose to spite your face.
On top of all this, I still hold the belief it is extremely difficult to determine a fixed match unless perhaps we have highly suspicious and ridiculous scorelines running into double digits and over that may tickle the alarm bells to sound.
A typical example in this country is the 1989 episode where two relegation threatened teams, Sekondi Hasaacas and Eleven Wise scored a total of 39 goals without reply from their opponents. Hasaacas trounced city rivals Eleven Wise 19-0 and BA United whipped bottom of the table Accra based Man U 20-0 at Sunyani. Before these final fixtures Hasaacas and BA United had tied with 21 points apiece on the relegation border line but United had a superior goal difference of three. It meant therefore that the Sekondi boys needed to score at least four goals without reply to oust BA United.
There had been wild speculations that these matches were going to be fixed and the incredibly high goal tally no doubt confirmed these rumours.
Circumstantial evidence clearly showed there was something fishy. The GFA therefore rightly declared results of the matches null and void. All the four clubs forfeited their share of gate fees and were suspended from playing all matches organised by the GFA. In addition, each club was fined 250,000 cedis. Players and club officials involved in the suspected scandal were banned for one year. Luckily, after six months the sanctions imposed on the clubs and officials were lifted. The official explanation was that the action followed serious considerations of the numerous appeals by the public and the clubs own remorse at the episode.
This was a corrective measure to save the dignity of the league. Sekondi Eleven Wise formed in 1919, Hasaacas born in 1925, and BA United established in 1961 were rightly fined for misdemeanours and not disorganised like what the current GFA is attempting to do to such an established club like Ashgold founded on a solid golden ground.
My argument is if evidence shows clearly a club chairman indulged in illegal betting using Ashgold, he should be solely charged for criminal offence in the law courts.
The club as an entity should be left alone to cater for the young men eager to make a living through playing football. And ironically all the so called football people at the GFA have suddenly forgotten how difficult it is to run a football club in this country. If by dint of managerial competence business stalwarts like Sam Jonah have been able to establish such a solid team for what critics describe as hugely neglected Golden city of Obuasi, let no man destroy such foundation.
I am not privy to the business aspect of Dr Frimpong’s engagement with the Ashgold entity. From a purely football angle the records say the club is still Ashgold, the pride of Adansiman, who hitherto knew only of the dilapidated Obuasi Horsey Park.
It is not by chance that Ashgold won the league back to back on three occasions when the professional football was forcibly promulgated by the flamboyant sports minister E T. Mensah.
Even though ET subsequently might have felt uncomfortable with Ashgold’s dominant symbol of the elephant, most probably for political reasons, he was satisfied with the brilliant beginning of the professional league he had introduced. More so when his pet club, Hearts of Oak, clinched a record back to back six-time championship titles during his tenure. Seriously there is everything wrong with the GFA decision to demote Ashgold and the so-called accomplice, Inter Allies. Honestly, I don’t fancy a lot of these mushroom teams like Inter Allies, who in my view unfortunately appear to me to be mercenaries.
If you consider the amount of work by old folks like Seth Yeboah and Fred Arnold did on their pitches at Dawu and Apeguso respectively, then you have an idea what went into building the strong edifice by name Len Clay Stadium at Obuasi.
Some analysts believe sports and party politics don’t mix. I beg to differ. They do mix that’s why we have whole Ministry for youth and sports. In fact, competitive sports is for the youth so is surface mining.
If the Adansi youth are robbed of their pet football relaxation after a hard week’s rest, it’s a problem for the nation.
I maintain the GFA erred right from the beginning when they announced the demotion of Ashgold at a time the league was still in progress. I pointed out the error but it fell on deaf ears.
Now to add confusion to disbelief, they want second placed Division One clubs to replace demoted Ashgold.
This is strange and I back the protest by Techiman Wonders who claim hereditary right to replace Ashgold in the premiership. After all the regulations say three clubs from Division One to replace three from the premiership. If Ashgold are automatically demoted from the boardroom, we need only two more Premier clubs to join the Miners in relegation.
It’s all getting murkier and murkier and the perception is the GFA may be taking sides. When a defending champion incredibly gets only one point out of possible 15 from its last five games against comparatively weak opposition, no eye brows are raised. Let us acknowledge that currently football is a whole industry by itself. There is therefore the need to avoid any capricious decisions that would affect the benefits to be accrued from this global enterprise.
Perceptions can be ominous at times but there is a strong belief some people are pulling political strings at the headquarters of the passion of the nation.
This Ashgold episode should be given the national attention it deserves. The political implications may be more subterranean than you think.
Cheers everybody and keep loving sports.
