GFA is a private entity not a gov’t organisation – Kurt to Parliament’s Select C’tee

The President of the Ghana Football Organisation, Kurt Edwin Simeon-Okraku, has expressed surprise at the invitation extended to the nation’s football-governing body by Parliament to explain the state of the domestic league. 

The Executive Council of the Association, led by Mr Okraku, was in Parliament on Wednesday, November 4 at the instance of the Select Committee on Youth and Sports.

But before hearing by the Committee, the GFA President, who is also the Second Vice President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), insisted that the Association only works closely with government and not a government organisation.

“The GFA is a private entity,” he stated. “It is not a government organisation. The GFA works closely with government and that has been the practice throughout.”

Explaining the Council’s reaction at Parliament’s invitation, he said: “The GFA engages another private entity to promote our Premier League and then the next thing we hear is there is an invitation by this august House to explain the establishment of the business relationship that we have. It came as a big surprise.”

But Mr Okraku went further to give a fair assessment of the state of football in Ghana.

He later requested an in-camera hearing regarding the very reasons for Ghana’s 44-year AFCON drought.

He said some of the reasons are best heard in private rather than in public.

“There are certain reasons that I would not want to talk about here becauss I see cameras and whatever we say here is public. Sometimes certain truths said at the wrong time could be very damaging.

“So, if this Committee is very interested in going to the bottom to find perhaps that singular reason why Ghana in 44 years have not won an AFOCN trophy, we can have that discussion without the cameras.”

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