The Hypocrisy of the British High Commissioner

The British High Commissioner, His Excellency Jon Benjamin has waded into the ongoing debate on funding grassroots football in Ghana descending heavily on the Ghana Football Association accusing the GFA of misusing the FIFA Financial Funds given to the Nation.

The stance of Jon Benjamin smacks of hypocrisy as the High Commissioner failed to do a critical analysis of the situation.

Football goes through three stages, i.e. Growth, Development, and Promotion before it is enjoyed by all, and Government has a huge role to play to ensure these three stages are attained.

Hypocrisy

The High Commissioner showed lots of hypocrisy in his criticism of the Ghana Football Association when he said the GFA has not invested a single amount of money received from FIFA, an allegation which is not true from the activity report released by FIFA.

FIFA has published how each member association used funds that were allocated to them, which has been duly audited. It is also important to note that, the High Commissioner refused to remove the log in his eyes but rather sort to remove the speck in the eyes of Ghanaians, as records show that, the English FA has never channelled a single percentage of their Financial Assistance Program money, to the development of Grassroots football since 2011.

Financial Assistance Programme

FIFA makes available funds to the 209 member associations, and a further 5.5 million USD to the various confederations, as it is important for clarification that, the Financial Assistance Programme is given specific areas where such funds must be used by the member associations as shown below:

Government Involvement

H.E Jon Benjamin showed another hypocrisy by failing to tell the Government of Ghana how the Government of England has financed the development of Grassroots football, making the English FA concentrate on Men and Women Football.
H E Jon Benjamin may not know about the following funds which have been instituted by the British Government for the development of grassroots football.


Small Grants
Community Sport Activation Fund

Protecting Playing Fields Fund

I believe Jon Benjamin can channel his influence and resources to the Government of Ghana to learn from the British Government on how to develop grassroots football, which is a fundamental duty of the Government. It is an undeniable fact that Governments all over the world have channelled huge resources into the development and the growth of Sports.

Grassroots Football

Even though Ghana cannot boast of the best grassroots football development in the world, the English youth system comes nowhere near what Ghana can offer. Ghana has performed better in terms of international football than England in the last 10 years. Ghana has won the world youth championship within the period while performing creditably better than their English counterparts.

At the senior level which is a promotion from the youth team, Ghana has done better than the three Lions at the last three world cup tournaments, so if you have a better grassroots football system, it must reflect on your game.