Ghana Football Association (GFA) president Kurt Okraku says talks are still ongoing behind the scenes to decide the future of the Ghanaian Football Season in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak.
Okraku admits the Covid-19 Pandemic has impacted negatively on the finances of football and the Association’s development agenda.
The football chief is worried that the Ghanaian League will lose more of it’s credibility if the season is not complete.
“Since 2017, we haven’t played a league and declared a winner, which is a big problem because no sponsor wants to be associated with a product which is consistently inconsistent,” Okraku said when appeared on GTV Sports on Wednesday.
“I want to call for calm, we shall take a decision in the interest of everybody. We will communicate our decision if we decide to either cancel or truncate the season.
“As we speak, there’s no decision as to whether the Ghana Premier League would be cancelled or not. We are still in talks.
“I don’t have the exact figures as to how much revenue clubs will lose if the league is cancelled. But you don’t expect sponsors to continue sponsoring when there are no football activities.”
Okraku further warns that it will be another challenging period for the clubs, referees, match commissioners and all stakeholders if the season is cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“At the lower leagues, football indirectly contributes a lot to the economy. Also with football, sponsors will not continue to bring their money on board,” Okraku said.
“The GFA will lose partners, clubs will also lose their deals with partners and sponsors, players may lose either their contracts or endorsements, fans will also lose that excitement they get when they watch the games.
“I share in the pain of club owners at this point in time. Throughout the world when issues like this come up, the issue of salary comes up. Fifa has spoken about the issue.
“At the last Exco [Executive Committee] meeting, we gave ourselves up until the end of June to make a decision. We are considering all scenarios, in our engagements with stakeholders.
“Our medical team led by Dr Adam Baba is working very hard to come up with a document for us to consider.
“I think our football has gotten to a point where we need to allow science to play a role. It is something that my administration will look into.”
Aduana Stars are currently on top of the table before the league was cancelled when Ghana recorded its first cases of the Coronavirus.
