Sports Ministry denies throwing out GFA’s 2015 AFCON budget

Minister of Youth and Sports Mr. Mahama Ayariga has debunked news making the rounds that the budget presented to the Ministry by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) has been thrown out because of the huge figures presented.

According to him, the Ministry is currently vetting the AFCON 2015 budget sent to the Ministry by the GFA.

“The Ministry vets every budget brought to it by the GFA and satisfies itself that all the activities in there are those that should be undertaken and supported by the Ministry and funded with public funds before approving it”

He said “at times one is asked to go and redo a budget for multiple reasons; maybe one or two items have not been factored into the budget and as a Ministry we discuss and make such suggestions as well.”

In a chat with Times Sports, Mr. Ayariga stated that at their last meeting with the GFA on Tuesday it was clear the Black Stars coach Avram Grant is yet to take a decision on his backroom staff, where to go for camping ahead of the tournament, so the ideas the GFA had as to the number of backroom staff and where to go for camping and the figures presented concerning air travels will definitely change should the coach have different ideas, and so as a Ministry they suggested that the GFA gets all those information from the coach and get back to the Ministry.

He promised that the final budget that will be approved will be a budget that will be in the good interest of all and which will cater for all the needs of the team to forestall any eventualities that may have happened in the past.

Answering a question as to whether Ghana can win the tournament, the Sports Minister said looking at the coach’s tenure, it will be difficult to tire him to winning the tournament but we expect to go and win the tournament.

“Every Coach goes to a tournament with the sole aim of winning the ultimate and that is the dream of the coach as well as Ghanaians. Everybody is expecting the cup here in Ghana come the end of the tournament and the Ministry together with the GFA will stop at nothing to help him realize this dream,” Hon Ayariga said.