Rogues at the gates of Len Clay Stadium

Match day five fixtures of the 2017/18 Ghana Premier League were honoured as scheduled with very interesting results recorded at venues like Obuasi and Berekum. The 3-0 humbling of Hearts of Oak by Berekum Chelsea rudely reminded the Phobians that, they aren’t out of their difficulties yet.

Ashgold fortified their place on top of the league table with an emphatic 2-0 victory over Kotoko, many of whose supporters, are also yet to come to full grasp of the incompetence of the current Management.

We can shelve that matter for another day. But then, for the umpteen time, an Ashgold-Kotoko game at the Len Clay Stadium, saw journalists accredited by the Ghana Football Association (GFA), being insulted and manhandled without any justification by agents of Ashgold, who can best be described as rogues.

The Obuasi venue has seen primitive, dehumanising behaviour at the gates for years. It leaves me wonder if Ashgold as a club truly care about the lives of journalists who cover their matches at home.

If Ashgold’s leadership aren’t worried about the slur the conduct of those miscreants at their gates casts on the club’s reputation and the overall image of the Ghana Premier League; their human predispositions should tell them that, the risk journalists experience at their gates are totally unjustified. Our lives matter.

While clubs like Dreams FC are building fantastic reputation of giving journalists access to their rightful, designated places at Dawu; providing free internet service, food and drinks; as they undertake their legitimate business; agents of Ashgold prefer to shamelessly throw punches at accredited journalists.

On match day four last season, same Ashgold-Kotoko game, it happened. Journalists with the GFA’s media accreditation were thrown out. Not even police personnel detailed at the venue could stop the mindless thugs they employ. That was the fifth consecutive time, I had seen waywardness at Ashgold’s gates.

Incidents of journalists being maltreated at venues like Obuasi are disgraceful. Colleagues reported that, Sunday’s incident actually happened in the presence of Ashgold’s CEO. The GFA’s repeated condemnation of those acts at Obuasi are all right but not enough. We have had too many of them in recent years.

GFA spokesman, Ibrahim Sannie Daara has apologised to the media for Sunday’s incident, promising to look into the matter but that’s a story we’ve been told every season. Let the GFA note that, the negative reportage we all hate to see about the Ghana Premier League, often starts with their failure to adequately punish the awry, outrageous conduct of clubs and their officials.

It makes no sense for journalists to travel on our dangerous roads for hours and for hundreds of kilometres to venues like Obuasi, only to be senselessly assaulted at rogues at the gates. Let the GFA and club managers watch these acts, for, they all combine to destroy the image of the Ghana Premier League.