Exclusive: The Telegraph releases video of Ghana FA president Kwesi Nyantakyi meeting reporters and investigators from the Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches at a five-star hotel in Miami
The moment that the President of the Ghana Football Association agrees that his team will take part in a game organised by match fixers can now be disclosed for the first time.
The Telegraph today releases video of Kwesi Nyantakyi meeting reporters and investigators from the Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches at a five-star hotel in Miami.
The meeting was part of six month investigation in which representatives of “Diamond Capital” said they wanted to arrange football matches while appointing the referees.
During the covertly recorded encounter at the St Regis Bal Harbour hotel at the beginning of June, Mr Nyantakyi said that the sports investment group should have an “experimental period” before the Ghana FA agreed that all their friendly matches should be organised by Diamond.
Appointing referees is a common way of fixing the result of a football match. Before the Miami meeting, the fixers said that the President of the Ghana FA had raised concerns that he might be accidentally holding a meeting with undercover reporters.
Two fixers – Christopher Forsythe and Obed Nketiah – had arranged the Miami meeting, but Mr Nyantakyi had already spoken to the Diamond Capital representatives on Skype.
Although the contract specifically stated that Diamond would appoint the referees – in direct breach of Fifa rules – Mr Nyantakyi only raised concerns about the exclusivity clause.
Mr Nyantakyi said that several groups had wanted to arrange Ghana’s friendly international matches, but he was worried that one company would not be able to arrange enough games.
“Each of them has asked for this kind of relationship, but we have been reluctant to do it because from our experience, one person has not been able to provide matches all the time,” he said.
Apart from this point, the President said he was happy with the contract.
Reporter: "Were you happy with the contract, apart from addressing that point?"
Mr Nyantakyi: "Yeah these are the issues that I’ve got with it."
Reporter: "Great."
Undercover Investigator: "So we can work on that with a trial game."
President: "Yeah."
The latest evidence will raise further serious questions over the upper echelons of football.
Fifa said that Ghana had reported the matter and it was “evaluating the matter”. The World Cup organisers said that they took “allegations of match manipulation very seriously”.
Last night, Ghana said it would report two other figures to police and insisted that the President had not known about the plans to fix matches.
“Neither the Emergency Committee or any of its members acting alone or together as a committee authorized Mr Forsythe or any other person to solicit or receive bribes from Diamond Capital Management on its/their behalf,” said a spokesman for the Ghana Football Association. “In Ghana, it’s a criminal offence to solicit or receive bribes. We will ask the Police to investigate this aspect of the case.”