Ghanaian Parliamentarian, Sam George, has stated that he will only back calls for investment and sponsorship in the Ghana Premier League (GPL) if only the Ghana Football Association (GFA) will do the right things.
Hon. Sam George said doing the right things means the Ghana Football Association must deal with match-fixing and poor officiating issues in order to ensure the domestic league gets the needed sponsorship. The Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, emphasized that improving officiating will be very key in ensuring the Ghana Premier League gets the right investments.
“I would support calls for investments into the premier league on one condition, that if the FA would do the right things, and the right things means we can’t invest money in a league where the referees are substandard, referees make all kinds of dubious calls.
“You can’t just throw money into a league where at times, people are fixing matches, you can clearly see that something fishy and funny is going on; the league needs to be cleaned up to attract investors”.
Sam George
Sam George, a staunch supporter of Ghanaian Giants, Accra Hearts of Oak, added that “When you have world class officiating, when you have proper structures at the GFA, it would automatically attract investments”.
The Ningo-Prampram MP expressed his displeasure about the penalty awarded Kumasi Asante Kotoko during the super clash against Hearts of Oak in Kumasi, quizzing, “how is that a penalty?”.
The Ghana Premier League has been running without a headline sponsor for the past four seasons and many believe poor officiating, match fixing, and bad football pitches are some of the reasons for the lack of sponsorships.
Incentive package for match-fixing informants
Meanwhile, there are reports in the local media that the Ghana Football Association is ready to pay GH¢50,000 to anybody with concrete evidence on match-fixing in the Premier League. Even though the GFA is yet to officially announce this incentive package, sports analysts believe it will help protect the integrity of the Ghanaian league which has seen a nosedive.
There are suspicions that matches are being fixed by agents of betting companies. Five years ago, under Kwesi Nyantakyi’s leadership, the Ghana FA set aside GH¢20,000 for whistleblowers aimed at encouraging people to look-out for perpetrators of such illegal acts.
Match-fixing on the rise globally
Match-fixing presents a serious threat to the integrity of global sport at all levels as the amount of money bet on sports reached record heights in 2021.
Sportradar’s bet-monitoring service, the Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS), uncovered suspicious activity in 903 matches last year, across 10 sports and in 76 countries worldwide. It was the highest number of suspicious matches recorded in Sportradar Integrity Services’ 17-year history — a 2.4% increase on the previous high of 882 suspicious matches recorded in 2019.
The increase in suspicious activity arose alongside record levels of global sports betting turnover, which Sportradar estimated at more than €1.45 trillion. According to the report, in 2021, approximately €165 million was generated in match-fixing betting profit.
Organized crime syndicates are funded by revenue generated from betting fraud, which can in turn finance other illicit activities. The overall sum generated through betting corruption last year may even be greater, as this figure does not include any other potential financial schemes such as money laundering, Sportradar stated in its report.
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