By: Adamu Seidu (Recordsman)
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 claiming the GFA has misused the FIFA Financial Funds provided to the Nation.
The stands of Jon Benjamin sparks lots of hypocrisy as the High commissioner failed to do a critical analysis of the situation.
Football goes through three stages growth, Development, and Promotion before it is enjoyed by all, and Government has huge role to play to the success of these three stages.
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 was allocated to them, which has been duly audited, it is 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. Records show that, the English FA has never used 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 UDS to the various confederations, it is important of clarification that, the financial Assistance Programme is given specific areas where is must be used by the member association as shown below
Government Involvement
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 of 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 channeled 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.