In a statement released by George Afriyie, defeated presidential aspirant of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), he inferred that the GFA President is being vindictive and unfair in his response to a question posed to him during an interview with Joy FM where he sought to defend his alleged practice of running the FA with friends and cronies.
In his response, the FA president said “I don’t know what they mean by that but nobody wins an election and brings his enemies to come and work, I will not win an election and bring my enemies to come and work. I’ll bring people I believe have the capacity to help me deliver on my promise”.
In his statement on Tuesday, George Afriyie accused Kurt Okraku’s administration of sidelining some competent football persons, relegating them to the background, intimidating some and refusing to give some competent people roles to play. He further alleged, that Kurt Okraku is unable to tolerate and accept opposing views, hence his believe that those who think differently from his are “enemies” to his administration.
“It has now become clear, that some very seasoned, competent and qualified administrators were out of the vehicle of our football transformation due to their openness to divergent views and declaration of support for other candidates during the elections. Meanwhile, some highly competent and experienced staff members of the Association are being cowed into submission and in some cases honed out completely. This is not good for our football development”, the statement alleged.
Responding to the allegations by George Afriyie and the picture being painted by him, the newly appointed Communications Director of the FA, Henry Asante Twum has firmly denied such allegations, describing it as “unfortunate” and made “without a second thought”.
In his interview with Kumasi based FOX FM, Henry Asante outlined various appointments by Kurt Okraku and his Executive Committee, which has benefited different people some of whom were even campaigners for George Afriyie during the GFA elections. According to him, the defeated GFA presidential aspirant did not think twice about his impressions before releasing the statement.
“Georege Afriyie is the Managing Director for Liberty Professionals, before the elections Liberty declared 100% support for George Afriyie, today the MD of Liberty, Linda Ansong is serving on two prominent committees of the FA. George Amoako is the CEO for Kotoko, Kotoko declared 100% support for George Afriyie in a letter signed by George Amoako, today George Amoako is the Black StarsManagement Committee Chairman”, Henry explained.
To battress his arguement, he cited similar other examples of Kurt’s appointements that underpines the fact that the FA president is not what George is portraying him to be.
“All these examples I have given you clearly tells you that the person we are talking about, he is not vindictive and he is not someone who brings division, these are people who contested him”, he continued.
Henry further argued that the FA President’s response was not referring to individual and that the issue is being over stretched.
“For me I think we are over stretching this issue. I am not in the capacity to advise George Afriyie that the release he brought out is right or wrong but I think some of these points that have been underpinned if he had thought of them well and reminded himself maybe he wouldn’t have release that statement, so I think it’s unfortunate”, he concluded.
