2,000 footballs abandoned at port

Officials of the Ghana Football
Association have had to abandon
2,000 footballs at the port because
they could not afford to pay the high
import duty needed to clear them.
The footballs were donated by Black
Stars’ kits sponsors, Puma, to help in
the development and promotion of
the game of football in the country.
But FA President, Kwasi Nyantakyi
said the Association could not raise
the duty to clear them when they
arrived in the country.
Mr. Nyantakyi made the revelation on
Thursday, October 2, when he made
his third and final appearance at the
hearing of the Presidential
Commission of Inquiry into Ghana’s
participation in the 2014 World Cup
tournament in Brazil.
The GFA, he said, was compelled to
purchase the items on the local
market because it was cheaper to do
so.
“We left them at the port because we
couldn’t raise the funds,” he told the
Commission chaired by Justice Senyo
Dzamefe.
The FA President strongly advocated
the need for the state to invest in
developing infrastructure in order to
produce the talents and promote the
game at district levels.
He said most playing pitches in the
country are in such deplorable states
that rather discouraged many people
from playing on them for fear of
sustaining serious injury.
The dry, brown and dusty pitches the
President termed “sakora pitches”,
have become a disincentive to
managers of the game at the lower
levels hence the difficulty in
producing talented footballers with
the requisite skills to represent the
country.
“For some of the pitches, Europeans will not even want to walk on them let alone play football…they don’t
promote football [but] rather they
promote injuries” he remarked.