Popular Ghanaian sports commentator, Benjamin Willie Graham, has criticized the Ghana Football Association (GFA) as well as football administrators for the current state of Ghana football.
Graham spoke on ‘Beyond the Pitch’ on GTV Sports+ and bashed the FA for not properly branding and marketing Ghana Premier League (GPL).
“We have not necessarily branded and marketed our league in such a way that will help. Those at the FA, I will say and I will mince no words, it is more of administrative work that they are doing, but in terms of the big work that has to be done, by way of going out there and looking at the best practices that can help us to propel the league [GPL] forward, we are not doing that and that is the reason we are where we are.”
Graham pointed to made in Ghana Rush Energy Drink sponsoring former English Premier League (EPL) champions, Leicester City back in 2016 while the Ghana Premier League had no sponsor attached as an example.
“We were here in this country when Rush [energy drink] decided to advertise the English Premier League which became a big issue in the country as to why Rush would move to the EPL and not Ghana, and they had a reason. They said that the mileage they would get over there will triple their profit margin than doing it in Ghana.”
It should be noted that Kasapreko Company Limited (KCL), also struck a deal with the English Premier League during the same period.
The experienced football commentator gave his thoughts as to the best way to solve the problem saying, “I think that people who have the professional know-how, people really have the managerial acumen to say that okay we want to push the league from this level to that level must be given a chance.
We are also not helping ourselves by way of pushing the clubs or perhaps the club owners to change from what they used to do in the past to something more new, and so we are where we are because we are not really forthright or forthcoming with innovative ideas to help us and I don’t think we have done enough.”
Benjamin Willie Graham has 14 years of experience in Journalism working for the likes of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), SuperSports among others. He currently serves as Senior Operations Officer and Editor at the sports office of GBC.
