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Soccer News of Tuesday, 26 August 2003

Source: Soccer Express

GFA Boss Creates More Confusion

Premier League clubs have accused the Ben Koufie-led Ghana Football Association of taking a unilateral decision to indefinitely postpone the 17th week league matches originally slated for tomorrow.

Soccer Express enquiries late yesterday revealed that the clubs are seething with anger and are very unhappy over the decision to postpone tomorrow’s games while a Ghana League Clubs Association meeting yesterday resolved to query the FA for taking a decision they are convinced was not ratified by the relevant body, the Professional League Board.

But FA Chairman Ben Koufie who has been accused of virtually taking the decision alone has denied acting unilaterally. He told the Soccer Express in an interview last night that having recognised the need to prepare the Black Stars for impending national assignments his association recognised the need to camp the national players for a considerable period and the thought of doing away with midweek matches to allow for the smooth camping of the national team was brought up.

Koufie said having received the nod from his colleague members he consulted with the Acting Chairman of the PLB, Mr Abra Appiah before a decision was taken to announce the postponement of the league.

The clubs are however concerned about what they believe is the failure to resort to procedure as the PLB is the body empowered by regulation to meet to decide on such fixture changes. It could not be ascertained at the time of going to press if indeed the PLB failed to meet, but Ghalca Administrative Secretary, Kudjoe Fianoo told the Soccer Express yesterday that his outfit was convinced the PLB failed to meet to deliberate on the matter of the postponement of tomorrow’s games before the announcement went public.

Fianoo echoed sentiments expressed by other club officials Soccer Express spoke to that the FA was ridiculing the entire league fixtures by postponing matches at will and also questioned why the 17th week matches were not pushed to Sunday but postponed indefinitely.

But Ben Koufie will have none of that. He was emphatic about the fact that all actions taken on the league had been in the supreme interest of the clubs. The FA boss said the clubs had lamented the rigorous nature of the midweek matches on countless occasions and wondered why they are now asking questions when their wishes had been granted them.

Koufie said due to the demands of the clubs to do away with midweek matches the FA had written to CAF for an extension of the deadline for Ghana to notify the continental body of its representatives for the 2004 CAF competitions and CAF responded positively by rescheduling the date from November 30 to December 10. "We have again written to CAF for yet another extension to December 21. What else can we do?"

On the matter of pushing tomorrow’s games to Sunday, Koufie said during such situations the FA always has two options, either to push the fixture to the next available date or suspend that fixture in question to allow for the honouring of subsequent fixtures.

Koufie denied any knowledge of the clubs’ stance, but Soccer Express investigations confirmed that Koufie indeed spoke to Abra Appiah last Friday while the latter was on his way to Kumasi and that may be enough grounds for Ghalca to feel convinced that the PLB never met on the matter.