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| GFA President, Kwesi Nyantakyi. |
It’s a painful conclusion I’ve come to. I think at times,
the Ghana Football Association (GFA) open itself up for too much bashing. The
other time, it was a remark reportedly made by the GFA President, Kwesi
Nyantakyi that sparked public criticism of the FA. Nyantakyi was quoted as
saying that, he wouldn’t watch matches of Accra Hearts of Oak again, after some
rogues parading in ‘rainbow colours’ attempted to physically attack the decent,
respected man.
It was most unfortunate that, this came just about a week
to the 14th anniversary of the May 9th stadium disaster which killed 127 fans. That,
people could still think of violence at the very stadium which witnessed that catastrophic
football tragedy in our history, tells me that, many are yet to learn anything
worthy from the horrifying incident of 2001.
I sympathize with the GFA President for any trauma he
might have suffered as a result of his near-assault. I however can’t agree with
him. I think his decision to boycott Hearts of Oak matches isn’t right. If
anybody would say such a thing, it shouldn’t be the FA President.
I accept that, the GFA President is human and as a
rational human being, he would avoid anything that has the tendency to harm him
or senselessly end his handsome, young life.
But the crux of my disagreement with him is this: if GFA
President wouldn’t want to visit a match venue because of acts of violence or
hooliganism, who should go to that venue?
Let me make myself clearer. I’m not saying, the GFA
President has to ignore the risk of being attacked by some scoundrels and visit
any match centre where there’s a threat to his life. I’m only saying that, as
the figurehead; as the number one person entrusted with the management our football;
as the ‘father of Ghana football’, President Nyantakyi didn’t have to say that.
All things considered, his comments were in my opinion, a
bad advertisement for the league.
It appeared as a discouragement to any individual wishing
to watch Hearts matches. As I said earlier, if the GFA President isn’t
interested in watching Hearts matches apparently because of the violent
behaviour of some of their fans, who would he encourage to watch Hearts
matches?
I’m not preaching hypocrisy but at best, the GFA
President could have kept that unpopular decision to himself rather than making
it public to expose himself and the FA to the avoidable criticism. The
behaviour by those Hearts supporters must be condemned in no uncertain terms.
The attempt by some Hearts supporters to rationalize their
primitive attitude and the radio interview by one of their leaders that, it was
rather the Premier League Board Chairman they were looking for goes to show how
misguided some supporters’ leaders are and can be.
Hooliganism is real in our football. We can’t deny that. There
have been many incidents of violence at league centres, perpetrated by
supporters of practically every football club here. Sadly, we don’t seem to
have dealt with violence in our game as decisively as we should. There may be
laws that see to the punishment of clubs for violence at their matches but I
say those laws don’t really bite.
What is more, it is not enough to continue punishing
clubs for crowd violence while the very people who carry out the irrational
acts of violence eternally walk free. It may well be world-wide football practice
to have clubs punished, when their supporters misbehave but that practice does exist
with the actual perpetrators of stadium violence also being punished.
Where possible, those perpetrators are arrested,
prosecuted and jailed if found guilty.
In some cases, they are even banned for life or barred
making stadium appearances.
It’s understandable that, we don’t live in the kind of system
that can accurately identify and track hooligans, arrest and punish them. But with
police presence at the stadium, it shouldn’t be difficult arresting and
prosecuting people who take the law into their hands.
If it’s about repealing our football laws that don’t seem
to bite well, we must chart that path to fight the canker head-on. I share Mr. Nyantakyi’s
pain but Mr. President, please rescind your decision for it doesn’t serve the
GFA’s interest of promoting the local Premier League.
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