Ghana’s preparations participation in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games thrown in serious disruption after the GFA Normalization Committee has reportedly refused to pre-finance flight tickets for the foreign based invited players.
The fact remains, that the account of the Ministry of Youth and Sports is currently frozen and inaccessible to the ministry, which is responsible for financing national teams tournament preparations. It is unclear why the ministry’s account is frozen, but our findings are that the sector is currently battling a legal case at the court after being sued by unnamed person(s) for a case that is not really of public knowledge. As a result, the sports ministry is unable to provide funds for the national U-23 side for their ongoing preparations to the African U-23 Cup of Nations in Egypt, through which Ghana will secure qualification to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
As the body responsible for football administration in the country for the time being, the Normalization Committee (NC) has been told by the Sports ministry to prefinance the Black Meteors preparations for the AFCON qualifier against Algeria this Friday, September 6, but the NC President, Dr. Kofi Amoah has reportedly told the ministry to either provide funds for the invited players to arrive in the country and prepare for the match, or Meteors withdraw from the tournament.
According to Dr. Kofi Amoah, the Ghana Football Association has money but the money is meant for different purpose and not for the Black Meteors and for that matter, tells the ministry to either provide the funds, or the team withdraws from the tournament.
Presently, the technical team for the Meteors headed by coach Ibrahim Tanko is left with no option, and has asked the invited foreign based players to fund their own flight tickets to Ghana to honour the national duty.
Coach Ibrahim Tanko has invited 12 foreign based players for the match, which include Yaw Yeboah the skipper, Bernard Tekpertey, Joseph Paintil, Joel Fameye, Osman Bukari, Majeed Ashimeru, Dauda Mohammed.
Others are Kwabena Owusu, Gideon Mensah among others.
