Thirst for domestic football action

Referee Seidu Bomison in action at a league venue. 

The uncertainty and near state of hopelessness that have clouded the domestic football landscape seems to be a perfect climax to a year that saw not only Kumasi Asante Kotoko but also our arch rivals Hearts of Oak struggling for Premier League survival. Events for the two most popular clubs took a downward spiral, causing massive disappointments for Kotoko and Hearts fans.

Although the two teams eventually survived the turmoil especially with relegation, the dust appears not to have settled properly on that loathsome Kotoko-Hearts-Obed Owusu protest. As a journalist with Kotoko, I probably don’t have to be concerned if the review of the judgement by the Appeals Committee, sought by Hearts hasn’t seen any illumination by the GFA.

I perhaps don’t have to be interested in how that case finally ends because after all, Kotoko got the vexatious Disciplinary Committee ruling that docked the club six points overturned. Indeed, I would have cared less if I didn’t have interest in the domestic league. I would have of course spent no energy on my sickbed revisiting this matter.

I don’t expect Hearts to secure what they are looking for concerning this case. I don’t even believe they would get judgement turned in their favour. As I said in a radio interview sometime back, although Hearts’ apologists didn’t admit, the ultimate aim of that exasperating ruling by the Disciplinary Committee, was to offer Hearts, then caught neck deep in the relegation battle, some respite if not the impetus to confront their last two decisive matches.

Thankfully, that objective was achieved so why are they so bent on having the very lucid judgment of the Appeals Committee reviewed? Whatever the outcome of that case will be, its handling adds to the confusing and almost inept management of the domestic league this year.

As someone with a passion for our local game, the present situation, where we don’t know when the 2015/16 season will start, isn’t only boring. It also raises questions about how and when we will see an end to this type of deadlock, not seen in any well-administered football league. I wouldn’t have been writing this way if this was the first time such a thing was happening.

Prior to the start of the 2014/15 season, we were subjected to this painful ordeal of having to wait so long to pursue what brings us joy when it comes to domestic football. Whatever has brought us to this point, and I hate to interrogate it, may have its own merits but the fact that, we are back at experiencing what caused so much disaffection between the Ghana Football Association (GFA) and local football fans in 2014, tells me we have learnt nothing.

As I have written in previous articles, I don’t want to be seen as constantly criticizing the GFA because my conviction is that, the FA, regardless of the often harsh criticism and habitually unfair bashing it receives, isn’t a hopeless, visionless establishment as some want us to see it. They have been up to some good and constructiveness except that, their management of the domestic league has recently left so much to be desired.

An example of the useful things the GFA has been up to is the media and marketing seminar they are organizing this week for club administrators. As an advocate of good management and administrative practices in our football, it’s only fair that, I pat the GFA on their back for that initiative.

Irrespective of how dull the domestic football scene has looked lately as a result of the boring inactivity, the congregation of administrators, media and venue officers at a two-day seminar on the much talked about club licensing programme, marketing and sponsorship – to essentially build capacity – in fact, access knowledge on what they may not know, isn’t a bad scheme.

Whether it’s coming as an after-thought or a planned programme, the importance of the event taking place at the Alisa Hotel in Accra can’t be downplayed. It’s good, but GFA, please, get the season back, for those with a thirst for domestic football action are suffering.