Ranking Member of the Youth, Sports and Culture Committee of Parliament and also MP for South Tongu, Hon. Kobena Mensah Woyome has called for concerted efforts to protect the integrity of sports, especially football in the country.
He warned that the phenomenon of match-fixing and how it is gradually eating into Ghana football must be dealt with expeditiously to eliminate it and restore credibility to the game.
Hon. Kobena Woyome made the call in a statement to Parliament on Wednesday during which he made a passionate appeal to the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to strive harder to ensure match-fixing does not take over football to kill interests.
Match-fixing, he said, make matches so predictable that it drains away the little interest left in the local league if stringent measures are not implemented to keep fixers away.
He said, “Football, like other sports, is certainly entertaining, but it is also far more than that. It mirrors our society and serves as the repository for some of our most cherished values. Children and adults look to athletes as heroes, drawn by the aspects of character that play out on the pitch: Determination, grit, talent, respect, fair play, and justice.”
“At their best, sports in general and football, in particular, are the stage on which we strive for physical, even spiritual greatness. They are a significant ingredient in the social glue that binds modern society. Match-fixing destroys all of these. When sports become a model of corruption, the demoralizing effect influences all of society.”
“Athletes are regarded as heroes particularly to the young ones in society, therefore when these heroes are corrupt; we have a very undesirable type of role model setting the bar for our youth,” he added.
Citing a game between Togo and Bahrain in 2010 when a sham Togolese national team lost to Bahrain and a 2019 game between Ashanti Gold and Inter Allies during which an Inter Allies defender deliberately scored two own goals to spoil a 5-1 scoreline bet, the Ranking member noted match-fixing is now a global phenomenon run by criminal gangs.
He urged football authorities to adopt recommendations presented to FIFA by Interpol following its investigation into match-fixing to kill the devil eating deep into the beautiful game.
Contributing to the statement, MP for Sunyani West constituency and Minister for Labour Ignatius Baffour-Awuah argued the statement was timely in view of the fact that match-fixing has been recorded in ghana.
He observed that football is a game enjoined worldwide and more so when it is played with all honesty and stressed anything that will mar its integrity, like predetermining the outcome of a game should be condemned and challenged.
Former sports journalists and MP got Odododiodioo, Nii Lamptey Vanderpuye, in his contribution observed that the effect of betting and match-fixing in football goes against the principle of fair play.
He stated that the advent of sports betting companies and the demise of the state-own sports lottery spelt the beginning of the compromise of the integrity of football.
This phenomenon, he said, should not be given free rein and appealed for an overview of the sports regulations and legal regimes in respect to sports betting to stem the tide before it becomes too late.
