You’ve not spent $110,000 on our athletes – GAA to Ben Nunoo Mensah

The Ghana Athletics Association has refuted claims by Ben Nunoo Mensah, the President of the Ghana Olympic Committee that his outfit has spent $110,000 on Ghana athletes for the Tokyo Games.

Ben Nunoo Mensah in a Happy FM interview stated that the success chalked by Ghana’s relay team over the weekend would not have been possible without assistance from the GOC.

Nunoo Mensah revealed that like most of the federations partaking in qualifiers, the GOC has provided financial support to the Ghana Athletics Association.

“If the GOC didn’t also play a role we wouldn’t have had all these athletes qualifying for the Olympic Games. The GOC has spent close to $100,000 to support these athletes to qualify.”

“In terms of preparations from these athletes, the GOC played a key role for instance when the amateur boxers were going for their qualifiers in Senegal we paid over $14,000 to them. Olympic solidarity scholarship to some of these athletes. For the track and field, they were given $10,000, and even in the World Relay tournament, they have received $9,000 for their expenses. In all the within 2020-21 GOC has spent close to $110,000 on the national athletics federation”.

But in a press release signed and copied to GhanaWeb, the GAA challenged the GOC to provide evidence of support.

The GAA disclosed that request on the GOC to assist the association fund some of its activities in the past were turned down.

“It has come to the attention of Ghana Athletics, following Ghana's participation in last weekend's World Relays, that the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) claims that it had given Ghana Athletics $9,000 for the World Relays, and insinuating that it had "spent close to $110,000 on the national athletics federation in support of Olympic Games qualification events." The GAA categorically states that none of that is true!”

“Ghana Athletics is calling for the GOC to indicate, by evidence, what funding it also gave to GAA in 2019 leading up to the Doha Competition and in 2021 for the Silesia World Relays. Indeed, 1 1 months after the Doha competition in August 2020, the GOC President was asked about the lack of support from GOC to GAA in 2019, and by extension the 2019 Doha competition. He said, "I don't know, I don't know. They have not come asking". Surely, if about a year after Doha, the GOC president claimed that GAA did not ask for support in 2019, contrary to existing evidence, then how can he credibly claim today that GOC provided $10,000 in 2019 to support the Doha competition? Ghana Athletics can provide bank account statements that will show that no monies from GOC were credited to our account, not a single Cedi (or dollar for that matter) for both qualifiers” part of the statement read.

Read the full statement below: