The Minister for Information nominee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has revealed that the work of the Normalisation Committee to run Ghana football will not go beyond March 2019.
The setting up of the committee was the major fallout of discussions had between FIFA and Ghana after the threat of a ban was issued earlier this month and it will replace the Executive Committee of the Ghana FA.
FIFA said that the government’s intention to dissolve the FA in court was viewed as government interference
The Government had been taking steps to dissolve the FA after allegations of corruption were made in the Anas Aremeyaw Anas tape which was aired in June.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Oppong Nkrumah said that the committee had to ensure that a set number of targets were met before they could fold up but they had to do so within a specified time frame.
“FIFA wrote a letter to the Government of Ghana on August 27 and said that the normalisation committee had been set up to do a number of things in relation to Ghana football.
The committee will run the Ghana FA’s daily affairs and corporate with a task force which will be set up FIFA and Ghana, review the FA’s statutes to comply with Article 15 of the FIFA Statutes and organise and conduct FA elections based revised FA statutes.
The working period of the normalisation committee shall expire when all their tasks have been properly fulfilled but these tasks should be done by no later than March 31, 2019.”
What does Article 15 of the FIFA Statutes say?
Article 15 of the FIFA Statutes says that:
Member associations’ statutes must comply with the principles of good governance, and shall in particular contain, at a minimum, provisions relating to the following matters:
(a) to be neutral in matters of politics and religion;
(b) to prohibit all forms of discrimination;
(c) to be independent and avoid any form of political interference;
(d) to ensure that judicial bodies are independent (separation of powers);
(e) all relevant stakeholders must agree to respect the Laws of the Game, the principles of loyalty, integrity, sportsmanship and fair play as well as the Statutes, regulations and decisions of FIFA and of the respective confederation;
(f) all relevant stakeholders must agree to recognise the jurisdiction and authority of CAS and give priority to arbitration as a means of dispute resolution; 14 II. Membership
(g) that the member association has the primary responsibility to regulate matters relating to refereeing, the fight against doping, the registration of players, club licensing, the imposition of disciplinary measures, including for ethical misconduct, and measures required to protect the integrity of competitions;
(h) definition of the competences of the decision-making bodies;
(i) to avoid conflicts of interests in decision-making;
(j) legislative bodies must be constituted in accordance with the principles of representative democracy and taking into account the importance of gender equality in football; and
(k) yearly independent audits of accounts
Who will be on the normalisation committee?
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah stated that FIFA would meet with the Government later this week to have discussions on the names of people or personalities who would be on the committee.
He hinted that FIFA also had some names of its own and so, the discussions would seek to find a common ground on the make-up of the committee.
What is a normalisation committee?
The committee is usually a stop-gap measure used by FIFA to help resolve situations in countries where there is no functioning football association or federation.
Usually, this happens when the country is banned or suspended by FIFA for flouting any of its rules and regulations.
The committee will be tasked to run football in the said country in the interim and ensure that the conditions for the smooth running of football are viable so that the management of the game goes back into the hands of the right people.
The right people, in FIFA’s eyes, are the ones elected by the members of their FAs and are duly recognised by the world governing body.
What about Ghana’s ban?
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said that FIFA had withdrawn the notice of the threat of the ban now after Ghana went ahead of withdraw the dissolution case out of court.
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By: Nathan Quao/citifmonline.com/Ghana