A Former Ghana Football Association (GFA) chairman, Lepowura Alhaji Mohammed Nuru-Deen Jawula, has asked for a more direct governmental funding for local football.
He said the government should vote an amount of $5 million yearly for football administration to enable all the divisions, regional football associations and local league clubs to have enough money to organise their programmes.
�Five million dollars is nothing for President John Mahama and his government to sign it off,� stressed the Lepowura of Kpembe in the Northern Region.
The proposition by the renowned football administrator comes at a time when the government has lost control over the financial management of football in Ghana despite being the chief financier of national teams in particular.
Indeed, in 2011 the intervention of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) by way of raid the offices of the GFA to investigate their books was met with resistance and seen as governmental interference through one of its arms.
The former GFA Chairman made the appeal last Friday during an interview with the Daily Graphic, and stated that �when clubs in other countries qualify for CAF championships, their governments support them to ensure they participate successfully, but the case is different in Ghana, and, therefore, we are not able to go far enough�.
When asked about his view of government spending a chunk of national funds on football at the state of other sporting activities, he said �how does handball or athletics impact on Ghanaians from Axim to Bawku, how do these sports permeate into society and how many successful athletes or badminton players do we have in this country?
�We can boast of professional footballers who ply their trade outside Ghana and bring in a lot of money. Moreover everybody loves football and it has become the heartbeat of the nation,� he stated.
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