FIFA orders Ghana reforms

...unhappy with GFA Boss Nyaho
Fifa, world football's governing body, has ordered an overhaul of the statutes of the Ghana Football Association (GFA).

It ruled that the current GFA structure has done serious harm to the administration of the game in the West African country.

"The architecture of the GFA statutes is extremely complex with the superposition of three bodies, the Congress, the Executive Council and the Management board," said Jerome Champagne, Fifa's deputy general secretary, in his letter of 23 March to GFA secretary Kofi Nsiah.

"With overlapping competences and three different presidents/chairmen, [it has created] "instability and a lack of clarity in terms of political legitimacy.

"The structure should be streamlined and simplified with a four-power system.

"[There should be] legislative (congress), executive (executive committee) and judicial (disciplinary and appeal committees), as is the case in Fifa, Confederations and football associations around the world," Champagne advised.

Fifa also expressed its unhappiness with the decision of GFA chairman Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe to take his battle with a group of stakeholders, who want him ousted as GFA boss, to the courts.

The GFA's 37-man executive council declared last year that they no longer had confidence in Tamakloe to function as the association's chairman, which prompted him to take the matter to a High Court in Accra.

"The repeated violations by the GFA president of Article 61.2 of Fifa statutes, on the prohibition of the recourse to ordinary courts, clearly proved the necessity to incorporate in the GFA statutes stricter clauses on legal disputes.

"Recent violations cannot be tolerated any longer by Fifa," the letter warned.

Democratic values

Also stating that the appointment of government nominees on the GFA board - that should consist solely of democratically elected members - will no longer be tolerated, Fifa has asked the GFA secretary to forward a roadmap that will effect the needed changes.

"Fifa requests the Ghana FA to launch a process to redraft its statutes in the coming three months," Champagne's letter further said.

"This process should take place quickly... Fifa would be grateful to the GFA to propose a detailed timeline for the completion of the various steps of this process.

"Immediately after the ratification of those new statutes by an extraordinary [GFA] congress, elections will be organised based on this new text and under the supervision of Fifa and Caf.

"Too much time has been lost in unnecessary and counter-productive political and legal infighting within and around the GFA," Champagne said.

But the infighting within the GFA could delay the articulation of a roadmap, as Nyaho-Tamakloe told BBC Sport that he has not seen Fifa's letter, a week after it was reportedly sent.

"I have not received any letter concerning Ghanaian football from Fifa," Tamakloe told BBC Sport on Sunday.

"I am shocked to be hearing this news for the first time from the BBC, rather than my own officials.

"As chairman of the association, such a letter should have been given to me by the secretary-general the moment he got hold of the letter.

"This confirms the problems in the set up here, as the secretary is a member of the executive. Maybe he decided to hide the letter from me."

Tamakloe told BBC Sport he may ask Fifa to send subsequent correspondence on Ghanaian football directly to him, so that he will be aware of issues affecting their relationship with the world governing body.