Ghana FA President Kwesi Nyantakyi has furiously debunked suggestions by the Sports Minister Nii Lante Vanderpuye that the country pays bribes for the national teams to qualify for international tournaments.
The sports minister embarrassingly implied last month that overtures were made to him to pay some amount for 'something' to help Ghana's U20 side qualify for the Africa Youth Championship.
This came after a newspaper claimed that a leak from the sport ministry had shown that the Black Stars pay bribes to referees on behalf of the various national teams.
Even though the Sports Ministry denied the report their press statement was no emphatic as it only sought justify the newspaper's report claiming it was a subject of discussion at the World Cup Commission.
The reports claimed that a whooping amount of $420,000 was paid as bribe to secure a place for Ghana in the 2014 FIFA World Cup
Speaking to Starr FM on Tuesdays the GFA boss completely debunked the claims saying neither the association nor the government paid bribes for the Black Stars qualification.
According to him, the wrong suggestions denigrates the hard work and achievements of players, culminating who qualified to the tournament purely on merit.
“Let me refute without any provocation that we don’t pay bribes to referees,” Nyantakyi said.
"The team have qualified on merit purely on merit and not on bribery…any suggestion that we qualified because we pay bribes is unwarranted and must be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.”