GNA sports journalist's life under threat

Accra, Nov. 2, GNA - Two management members of the national female soccer team, the Black Queens - Mr Sylvester Mensah and DCP Helena Cobbina - have threatened to deal ruthlessly with Veronica Commey, a female sports journalist with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) for what they term negative reportage of events surrounding the last Female World Cup in the USA.

The officials charged on Miss Commey at the Ghana Football Association (GFA) Secretariat on Friday afternoon, accusing her of advocating for their removal at the "top".

The journalist quoted skipper Alberta Sackey of the Black Queens while covering the tournament as describing officials of the GFA as ineffective and inefficient and lacking what it takes to transform the game.

Incensed by the news item, the two officials thought the best way to deal with the issue was to threaten the poor young reporter in order to gag her.

"You want us out of office? Don't worry, we shall soon leave so you can take over the running of women football in the country. We don't have time for you now but at the right time, we shall deal with you", DCP Cobbina said.

The exchanges got to a crescendo when a colleague of Ms Commey, William Ezah also with the GNA intervened to say, " the poor girl was only reporting what someone else had said, if you have a problem with the story, why not attack the source?" Unfortunately, this got the Deputy Police Commissioner Helena Cobbina mad, as she howled at the young man to shut up.

"I won't shut up", Mr Ezah replied. Deputy Commissioner Cobbina then handed over a handbag she was holding to a friend and attempted to heckle Mr Ezah.

The shameful incident forced workers at the GFA to come out of their offices to witness the scene at their corridor. Ms Commey had followed the team during the qualifiers for the World Cup and even was with the team at the African Women's Cup in Warri, Nigeria.

Unfortunately for reasons strange to her, the officials seem not to like her because they thought she was "too nosy and uncooperative." Perhaps what might have agitated the bad blood between the reporter and the two officials was when the journalist, who accompanied the GHATEL team to an invitational tournament in Burkina Faso last year reported that the Ghanaian team was not invited to the tournament. Mr Mensah who was the leader of the delegation felt the journalist had gone too far by making that revelation.

Subsequently, the Ghana team was only allowed to feature on non-scoring basis after a long spell of pleading with the organizers. In fact, the journalist was magnanimous enough to shelve some unprofessional attitude of the officials especially Mr Mensah who unilaterally "loaned" some of the ladies to some of the African teams for a fee during the tournament.