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Ghanaian FA Names New Head After Corruption Scandal

  The Ghanaian Football Association on Friday named a new president more than a year after a corruption scandal forced a major shake-up of the … Continue reading Ghanaian FA Names New Head After Corruption Scandal


Newly elected President of Ghana Football Association (GFA) Kurt Okraku gives a speech after the GFA president’s election at the Physicians and Surgeons Centre in Accra on October 25, 2019. The position of GFA’s president has been vacant since the corruption scandal that erupted on June 2018 where various members of the organisation were caught taking bribes on a special documentary by the investigative Ghanaian journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas. CRISTINA ALDEHUELA / AFP
Newly elected President of Ghana Football Association (GFA) Kurt Okraku gives a speech after the GFA president’s election at the Physicians and Surgeons Centre in Accra on October 25, 2019. 
CRISTINA ALDEHUELA / AFP

 

The Ghanaian Football Association on Friday named a new president more than a year after a corruption scandal forced a major shake-up of the game in the West African nation.

Kurt Okraku — chief executive of local Premier League club Dreams FC — filled the position left vacant since Kwesi Nyantakyi stepped down after an undercover documentary showed him soliciting kickbacks worth millions of dollars.

Okraku got the nod from the 120 delegates after beating former FA vice president George Afriyie at a second round of voting.

The expose by journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas rocked football in Ghana and led to the creation of a “normalisation committee” to lead reforms in the FA before a new president could be chosen.

Ghana’s government said the  revelations in 2018 had exposed “gross malfunctioning… characterised by widespread fraud, corruption and bribery” at the country’s FA.

Nyantakyi was banned from football for life by the sport’s world governing body FIFA last October after being found guilty of bribery and corruption.

The sting also saw a string of referees banned for life in Ghana and football officials in a number of other African countries sanctioned.

AFP