Kickoff (Cape Town)
24 November 2008
AshantiGold President, Herbert Mensah says the Ghana Football Association must take responsibility for the sponsorship hiccup that has hit the beginning of the Ghana Premier League.
The country's top-flight clubs had to kick start the 2008/09 campaign without a sponsor after Onetouch pulled out at the last minute in protest at a lack of adequate exposure for their money.
The situation has left many of the clubs unhappy but Mensah says it should not have happened in the first place.
"The football administrators should have known better and should have planned better. Clearly I don't think there was a cross over, that there was a plan B," he told KickOffGhana.com.
"Now it is going to be difficult for most of the clubs apart from Hearts and Kotoko who have big sponsors of their own."
Mensah has insisted in the past that clubs are running at a heavy loss and now says the problems with the sponsorship of the League will compound those problems.
"For me it is a simple matter that I have discussed before. The clubs need a certain amount to run and we can't call ourselves professionals if there is not the money to run the League.
"What we were supposed to receive is not adequate in the first place without it, it's even more difficult."
Mensah thinks the episode should trigger deep soul searching in the football administration. "They should look internally within themselves and ask if they are doing the right thing, if we taking the right approach and if we are marketing our game in the manner we should."
"The other Leagues on the continent are better off than us because they have put in a great deal of effort. Yet here we are with no idea when this will be resolved.
"Clubs have borrowed against those monies they were supposed to receive. Promises have been made to players and commitments made but the money is not there," he concluded.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Kickoff. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
