Veteran football administrator Kofi Manu, also known as Blue Boy, has expressed disappointment with the Ghana Football Association’s (GFA) decision to suspend AshGold from all football-related activities.
He thinks the GFA must take its lesson from the Court of Arbitration for Sports’ (CAS) decision to release all players implicated in the match-fixing affair and reinstate AshGold, who have been severely impacted.
AshGold were suspended from all football-related activities at the 29th GFA Congress following their refusal to comply with initial instruction of desisting from dealing with some personalities who were found guilty of being actively involved in the infamous match-fixing scandal between AshantiGold and Inter Allies which occurred on the final day of last three seasons.
Earlier to the punishment, both teams had been demoted to Division Two, and the 22 players implicated in the incident had also been given suspensions.
However, after further investigation, CAS accepted the players’ appeal and declared them not guilty. As a result, Manu believes that if the main actors in the alleged scandal have been cleared, there is no need to continue punishing AshGold.
“Any reasonable person with common sense should know that the consequential effect of the decision of CAS exonerating all the players who were the main actors and have also been freed finally by CAS, then, Ashgold should be reinstated,” he told Akoma FM.
“But due to the wickedness of the GFA President and the General Secretary, they have refused to do the needful.
“Kurt Okraku is an embodiment of disrespect for the rules and regulations of the association and I will be surprised to see Division One clubs vote for him on September 27th,” he added.