Former Asante Kotoko striker Alhassan Mohammed has rated Ghana Premier League and he believes ”standard and quality of the League has fallen” and that football in the country isn’t attractive anymore as seen previously.
A chunk of Ghanaians has raised concerns about the poor state of pitches and rampant departure of players from the local league.
Alhassan argues the quality of players in the Ghana Premier League has declined drastically with no creativity in the current crop of players.
In an exclusive interview with Ghanasportspage.com, the former Kotoko youngster indicated competition has been high but said lack of good playing pitches and befitting stadia is undermining the game.
“Back then, foreign leagues were not accessible for people to patronize, DSTV, Satellite weren’t popular then but they have (fans) the chance today to watch every match so if they come to the stadium and they don’t see what they see from the foreign leagues, they won’t bother themselves coming to the stadium anymore to pay money and watch,” he told Ghanasportspage.com.
“Our football isn’t attractive. The Ghana league is competing with Laliga, Premier League, German Bundesliga so what the fans are watching on their TVs, they won’t bother themselves coming to watch the GPL. Poor pitches, poor stadia, the quality of the players and many factors. It’s not as if those abroad are better footballers than us but the conditions around their game”
In making the league attractive, Alhassan Mohammed suggested there should be good pitches and good salary structure for players.
He believes the local league will be attractive if the aforementioned points are addressed.
“Recently the Tamale Stadium has been closed down due to the poor nature of the facility so for our football, we have so much rooms for improvement. There are many things to improve, the pitches, players, the teams themselves are not worthy of Premier League teams, they don’t have the facilities, the money. The clubs are just playing for playing sake, they are just playing with their fans’ hearts. They can’t even pay their players”
“The club licensing board should set some laws for the clubs, their pitches, how is your finances, how much is in your account, can it run your team for the season? All these should be done before the season starts. Every club must send players’ salaries to the FA’s accounts, not necessarily paying them with it but anytime you falter, the FA pays them with what they have in their account so if you don’t have that money to be deposited into that FA’s account then that means you don’t have the means to play in the league so you’d be demoted and look for a first division club that have the financial muscles to replace you”
“These things are not done because most of the people at the FA own clubs and they know these strict laws will definitely go against them so they won’t even implement it. Out of the 18 teams in the league, it’s only five or six of them that pay their players which brings worries on the players.”
Listen to what he said during the live interview with Sir Martin on GSP1 MEDIA in China
