An Accra High Court has ordered the government to release all assets of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) in its possession.
The order of the court follows a formal withdrawal of a suit by the Attorney General to dissolve the GFA, after following an agreement reached between government and FIFA over the cleaning of the GFA due to corruption claims.
[contextly_sidebar id=”KPK4OzlO7OiAjY9mr95JyIWT8cHLkGjR”]In July, a Solicitor General was appointed as the official liquidator to take charge of all assets belonging to the GFA.
Following today’s court order, a Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Dame, has indicated that the normalization Committee to be constituted by FIFA will be announced in the coming days.
“The membership will be made known to the public and then they will assume the powers of the GFA,” he told the media.
He said the committee “will review the statutes of the GFA and in due course, accordingly, they will organize elections for a new GFA.”
On why the government decided to withdraw the petition, Mr. Dame said “in terms of an achievement of the object of the petition, we have seen a satisfaction of the object. That is why we decided to withdraw.”
The government begun moves to end the dissolution after the government, CAF and FIFA agreed to set up a normalization committee to run Ghana football. This committee will replace the current Executive Committee of the Ghana FA.
The government initiated processes to dissolve the GFA in June after investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas uncovered widespread rot in all facets of Ghana football.
The government came to a compromise after FIFA threatened to ban Ghana over the lawsuit against the GFA.
FIFA held that the government was interfering with the GFA.
Background
On June 7, investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, aired a documentary titled “Number 12” on corruption in football in Ghana, and some leading figures including FA boss, Kwesi Nyantakyi, were seen allegedly taking part in some corrupt acts.
As a response, the Ghana government asked for the arrest of Kwesi Nyantakyi on the charge of defrauding by false pretense based on utterances he made on the tape.
Kwesi Nyantakyi then resigned from his position as Ghana FA boss and also from CAF.
FIFA also provisionally suspended Nyantakyi for 90 days as a result of the tape.
The Ghana government went ahead to secure a court injunction on the Ghana FA as the first step of a process that was to lead to the eventual liquidation of the Ghana FA under the Companies Act since the FA was registered as such.
As all of that happened, a freeze was put on Ghana football and that has not changed until present.
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By: Fred Djabanor/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
