Professional League Board chairman, Welbeck Abra-Appiah's gives a detailed report to Congress on 2005 GT premier league.

We reproduce the full text of the report read at the first ordinary session of Congress of the football association.

Below is the full text:


The 2005 GT Premier League was very competitive, exciting and well organized.

As a result and for the first time in many years, the league ended in mid-November without any disciplinary cases pending.

It is important therefore to highlight on certain issues of the league which made it so competitive and which may need the attention of all and sundry to correct the few unfortunate incidents and also improve upon what did not meet our satisfaction and expectations.

THE GALA

The Guinness Gala, as it was popularly known some year past was suspended for circumstances beyond the control of the Football Association and the Professional League Board.

Sponsorship for this event which ushers in the league changed hands with Ghana Telecom taking over from Guinness the traditional sponsors.

The 2005 Gala which was won by Kumasi Asante Kotoko, was well-organised and quite competitive with all the 16 Premier Clubs participating.

SPONSORSHIP

Ghana Telecom sponsored the league to the tune of 1.3 Billion Cedis.

The package for this year’s league was very appreciable as compared to what had been received the previous years.

The package also contained attractive innovations such as best player awards which went with Onetouch chips/starter packs for all the matches. This brought in healthy competition which raised the standard of play in the game.

It is hoped this would be sustained in successive years.

COCA-COLA TICKETS SPONSORSHIP

A deal was struck with Coca-Cola Ghana Limited to raise more funds for the clubs and other stakeholders.

By the arrangement, Coca-Cola products were served at the various stadia during league matches while the league rates went by Five Thousand Cedis (5,000) on the face value of tickets printed for the matches.

The clubs were to receive 60% of the proceeds realized from the Coca-Cola products served while the PLB took 39% with 1% going to the owners of the pitches where the matches were played.

Clubs have been drawing from the monies accruing from the proceeds.

SANCTIONS AGAINST OFFENDING CLUBS, OFFICIALS AND PLAYERS

The Professional League Board studied reports submitted by Officiating Officials and offences committed by clubs, officials and players received various monetary sanctions.

Clubs were informed by letters about sanctions imposed on them.

Offences which needed the attention of the Disciplinary Committee of the FA were duly refereed to them for adjudication.

The imposition of sanctions and fines brought some sanity and discipline into the league.

MATCH REPORTS

Match Officials reports were carefully studied by the Board and those found to have been improperly written were dealt with and the officials sanctioned.

In certain cases the culpable Match Officials were taken off the list of officiating officials while others were put on ice for some time.

Where a club reports the conduct of a Match Commissioners or Referee to the Professional League Board, the official was referred to the Disciplinary Committee for hearing and appropriate action.

PROTESTS

The 2005 Ghana Telecom Premier League went through thirty (30) weeks without protests on unqualified players.

This had been the bane of the Professional League Board and the FA for the past years.

It had also led to the delay in the completion and declaration of league champions. Indeed it also affected the promotion and relegation exercises.

The procedure introduced into the Registration of Players, the distribution of check lists for the registration of different categories of players and the scrutiny of registration documents submitted contributed to the elimination of protests on unqualified players.

This exercise is a great achievement which must be sustained.

INDISCIPLINE BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER LEAUGE MATCHES

Crowd violence have been the bane of Ghana Football for many years now with certain centres gaining notoriety for it.

The 2005 Ghana Telecom Premier League had its share of hooliganism with culpable clubs facing severe sanctions and fines.

Centres like the Ohene Djan and Baba Yara stadia, the Len Clay, Berekum, Sunyani, Kpando and Kaladan were the most guilty of crowd violence.

We have a duty as a people to do all that we possibly can to eliminate crowd violence from our game.

MACHOMEN

In the last year’s report I had cause to caution against the emergence of this canker in the league.

This was introduced by some club officials who are accompanied by machomen to league centres under the pretext of protection from attacks.

This menace is gaining grounds and it poses a big threat to the game of football.

We must all face the realities, identify its origin and find effective ways of eliminating it before it consumes us.

MATCH FIXING

Another unfortunate and very serious occurrence in our league is the question of match fixing in the league.

The cause(s) of this dirty phenomenon which is also rearing its ugly head in our game of football should be seriously identified and uprooted with legislation.

It comes on especially when the league enters the last stages; arguably from the 25th Week onwards. Something very drastic must be done to curb it before football is seriously jeopardized in this country.

JUDICIAL COMMITTEES

The Disciplinary and Appeals Committee are institutions whose total contributions have been phenomenal to the success of our league.

I wish to state that, they should be encouraged to sit, at least, twice a week to be able to deal with cases more expeditiously.

PLB’S SHARE OF 5% GROSS FROM GATE PROCEEDS

The Executive Council in its wisdom, decided to give to the PLB 5% of the gross gate proceeds of all league centers to enable it pay for the following expenses:

• Referees Officiating Allowances
• Match Commissioners Allowances
• Match Observers Allowance
• Accommodation of the three categories of officiating officials
• Transport fares of the officiating officials
• Feeding of officiating officials

In managing the PLB’s share as stated above, it came to light that the 5% gross income was woefully inadequate and could not pay for the bills aforementioned.

This has led to the referees threatening to embark on industrial actions but which were averted through dialogue and persuasive negotiations with them.

Indeed, we need to congratulate the leadership of the Referees Committee for their ability to ward off all intended industrial actions by officiating officials

PERFORMANCE OF REFEREES

The ‘Knights of the whistle’ continue to be the pivot around which revolves the success of football in this country.

Club officials, spectators ands stakeholders have had various degrees of misgivings about our referees depending on whether their club wins, loses or draws in a match.

Not surprisingly, unfavourable results of matches were attributed to ‘biased’ or ‘corrupt’ referees.

Well, since match officials are human they cannot satisfy the desires of all.

Some club officials and some referees are guilty of approaching one another for favours.

This situation had gone to influence the thinking of the majority of fans leading to violence after matches.

There are however some good referees with sterling qualities and we wish to ask them to be steadfast and continue to comport themselves always.

To those who would be found wanting, the FA would continue to discipline them with the hope of getting them to stop their bad ways.

SECURITY AT MATCHES

Our security personnel have done their best in ensuring that fans did no take the law into their own hands by protecting officiating officials during and after league matches.

We wish to ask them to continue to give adequate protection to our officials.

CONCLUSION

We should all put our hand on deck and strive to make our league one of the best on the continent.