Okudzeto Ablakwa Calls For GFA Probe: Pep Guardiola, Mourinho Can’t Save Black Stars

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Member of Parliament for North Tongu in the Volta Region has indicted the Ghana Football Authority (GFA) of a continuous arbitrary wastage of public funds without under the guise of searching for a new Black Stars coach at a time the FA should rather be accounting for the public funds it spent without Parliamentary approval on AFCON 2023.

Okudzeto Ablakwa argued that Ghana’s recent football history has proven that the mere replacement of the Black Stars coach cannot be the solution to the critical challenges of the Team and therefore the FA should as a matter of urgency dissolve the new Committee it has set up and tasked to use public funds to search for a new coach.

“They say they are sacking he coach but if we are still going to have this same rotten system, even if you bring Josep Pep Guardiola Sala the coach ranked by FIFA as the world’s latest best coach, or Jürgen Klopp as he is about to leave Liverpool, no matter who you go for or Mourino or whoever, there would be no results with this rotten system”, Okudzeto Ablakwa told Dan Kwaku Yeboah of Peace FM Sports.

The MP continued: “Have we not learnt enough by changing some 5 or 6 coaches over the last few years? Has it brought any progress? What should have been done is to issue an immediate apology. There are teams who did better than us but the Football Associations of their countries apologized even before they returned home.

“You saw Ivory Coast when they were in the tournament when they apologized to their President and the entire nation. They then put in place measures and now see their performance; how they knocked out the defending champions.

“When you admit that you have done wrong and you open yourself up for new ideas, you get better results. Why are FA officials in Ghana behaving like demigods? They always look for others to blame. This time, lets blame the coach. We need a postmortem, there should be a review
“That Committee they have formed for the search of a new coach, lets dissolve it. As a Member of Parliament who should be approving all these expenditures I feel insulted they have not brought the budget before us and now after spending all these money without Parliamentary approval, you are now bringing us more cost. What do these people take us for? Channing the coach is not the solution. They should dissolve the Committee and stop spending additional funds”, Okudzeto Ablakwa added.

The MP has earlier alleged that Government allocated in excess of $8.5m for the tournament in Côte d’Ivoire when it was open knowledge that even if the Black Stars won the finals, the money they would get from FIFA would be $7 m.

He spoke with Kwame Nkrumah Tikese on Okay FM: “They never told us the budget; Journalists asked, they were snubbed; Parliament asked, we were snubbed. Is it not shocking that after this calamitous output, instead of they apologizing and doing a detailed review , they are rather setting up committers to look for a new coach. They should first apologize for their failure, tell us the budget and turn a new leaf.

“Even if Ghana had won, he price money was $7 m and we are spending $8.5 m as our expenditure. Those who drafted the budget did not care about the prize money. They were just determined to make losses. They think we have more than enough money so we are in to make losses. How come that many of the countries that went for the AFCON had their budgets way below the prize money but we had our way above it? Zambia’s budget is $2.1 m so if they won, they would have made a profit of 5 million dollars”

Okudzeto Ablakwa concluded: “They have no respect for us and how they spend public funds. This cannot happen in any country and for the avoidance of doubt the $8.5 m does not include the qualifiers budget. This is just for the AFCON. The 2022/2023 qualifying budget is different from this. When you demand accountability, people behave as if you are disturbing them.”

In a sharp response, various media outlets have quoted a member of the GFA Executive Council, Nana Oduro Sarfo, to have said that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) when in government had spent more AFCON campaigns.

“He may have published the details to influence public discourse and deflect our focus from important issues. Maybe he did not like the fact that the New Patriotic Party’s Parliamentary Primaries were peaceful, free and fair.

“Or because he does not want Ghanaians to talk about the resumption of work on the National Cathedral”, Nana Oduro was quoted to have told Asempa FM