One Touch pumps over five billion cedis into premiership

Accra, July 26, GNA 96 One Touch Ghana Limited, operators of One Touch cellular phone, has renewed their commitment to the Ghana Football Association (GFA) by investing over five billion cedis in the form of sponsorship into the 2006/2007 national premier league. The figure is a huge improvement upon the 1.5 billion cedis, the company spent on the premiership last season.

It has therefore maintained the title rights over the league as the premiership will be tagged 93One Touch Premier League.=94 Mr Philip Sowah, Chief Operating Officer of One Touch, who announced this at the launching of the 2006/2007 premier league said 3.5 billion cedis would go into the organisation of the league, while one billion cedis has been devoted to multimedia rights. According to Mr Sowah, 500 million cedis will also be used to sponsor the premier league referees with 200 million cedis going for the four clubs that will occupy the top four positions at the end of the season.

He said other organisational expenditures are excluded from the five billion cedis package. Mr Sowah, said the company expected all stakeholders to play their respective roles effectively to ensure the success of the league. The Chief Operating Officer said the company expected clubs to display a high standard of football, educate and control their supporters to ensure an incident free league.

He also called on the GFA and the Professional League Board (PLB) to be firm with their laws and apply them appropriately. Mr Welbeck Abra-Appiah chairman of the Professional League Board (PLB) noted that this year's premiership would be the most competitive one due to the format being adopted for the selection of representatives for the 2007 continental competitions.

He explained that representatives of Ghana in the next continental competitions would be selected after nine matches of the first round, hence club were expected to start the season on a very competitive note. Mr Abra Appiah however assured the sponsors of an incident free league, as all the necessary measures had been put in place by his outfit to ensure a league, devoid of all forms of negative activities. The PLB chairman said the sponsors would reap adequate benefits from the investments they had made in the league. The communications company, last season took over the league with a 1.5 billion cedis package after the previous season had run without sponsors. 26 July 06