My invitation to the Ethics Committee

Referee Issaka Afful in Medeama-Kotoko match. 

Not that I’m a perfectionist. I’ve never wanted to be. I don’t want everything to be perfect with me. That’s not possible but last Thursday, I was hurt; I was emotionally bruised sitting in front of the Ghana Football Association (GFA)’s Ethics Committee.

I can’t explain my feeling but thinking through it, I suspect my own standards pronounced a guilty verdict on me before the committee sitting. Not even the calmness and the palpable  show of maturity and respect by the committee altered the morose feeling I had within. Again, I’m not perfect. I won’t boast but I’ve to say that I try with difficulty to be honest to myself.

People ought to be responsible and be ready to provide evidence to substantiate claims they make on anything. Having lived with that conviction, how I was going to be comfortable, sitting in front of the Ethics Committee and not having enough material to authenticate my position that, to win matches in the Ghana Premier League, you have to bribe referees.

The above was so avoidable. That remark, made on a Kumasi based radio station, is what compelled the esteemed Ethics Committee to invite me, to help them rid the game of corruption. Based upon my conviction, I say that, it’s one thing drawing a conclusion with strong feelings and observations, and a totally different thing, having hardcore evidence.

Not that I haven’t known the foregoing. I actually know it, except that, Referee Issaka Afful’s awful performance in the Medeama-Kotoko match at Tarkwa pushed me to say something I wouldn’t have admitted if someone else had said it. At the Ethics Committee, aspects of the audio recording was played to my hearing. I neither doubted the audio nor its content.

I however had to explain my claim. Events which characterised that match day ten league fixture, which Kotoko lost 2-1, were difficult to understand. I told the committee of how our Accra Representative and Premier League Board (PLB) member, Thomas Boakye Agyeman was slapped by a Medeama operative for no justifiable cause.

I recounted how our photojournalist, Gideon Boakye Botwe was barred from the match despite having the GFA’s media accreditation card. I also mentioned Referee Afful’s dubious penalty to Medeama. I recalled how the referee allowed play to continue for three minutes when Michael Akuffu lied on the pitch injured. One of our medical personnel, sensing danger, rushed onto the pitch to save the player’s life only to be given the marching off orders by the referee.

These developments, especially the referee’s behaviour baffled me. My claim was that, the referee’s attitude was unfathomable. If he hadn’t been financially influenced to cheat us, his level of incompetence was incomprehensible. The committee disagreed. I made a categorical statement, which couldn’t be justified, they said. I couldn’t say anything to the contrary. They were better positioned to determine what’s right and wrong upon my explanation.  

They admitted the challenges our game is facing. Those challenges would however be compounded if unguarded statements would be made by people who should know better, said the committee members who took turns to advise me. Their advice hit me in the face although they weren’t harsh. I’ve a confession. The Ethics Committee we hear of in the media, isn’t the Ethics Committee I met.

This is a committee that radiates maturity and respect. Of course, that’s the GFA’s Ethics Committee. We can’t expect less. Presentations by the fine personalities I met, left me in no doubt that, inside the GFA’s corridors, there are good things we don’t know or hear. Maybe, I had to appear before the Ethics Committee to come back and say this or learn more.  

Some of our views on the FA, its personnel and operations are often ill-informed. Thomas Boakye Agyeman and NCC spokesman, Michael Nkansah, who were there with me, spoke of how I’ve often backed the PLB on the development of the domestic league. I won’t change. Going forward, I will be more circumspect and still be critical of the ills in our game.

I know not what the committee’s decision will be but that lesson, the lesson that, drawing conclusions on feelings and observations are in fact, different, from possessing water-tight, incontrovertible evidence, has been reinforced. I’ve learnt it again. I thank the Ethics Committee.