The National Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has heaped praise on the Kurt Okraku-led Ghana Football Association in convincing government to financially assist to footballers during this period of coronavirus.
Through the ''Youth in Elite Sports for Ghana Programme'', 500 footballers in the country will be paid for the next months.
This was made known during the official signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Wednesday, July 8, 2020 between the Youth Employment Agency and the National Sports Authority (NSA) which is acting on behalf of all the benefiting Associations.
''It was very refreshing and welcoming when the GFA President Kurt Okraku came to see the Agency that he needed support for the various football activities in the country. In fact, I must commend him and the GFA for bringing such a worthy proposal to the Agency for consideration,'' Chief Executive Officer of YEA, Justin Kodua Frimpong (Esq.) said.
''Upon meeting with him together with the Board Chairman of the agency, we deliberated on it and made further consultation with the Ministry of Youth and Sports whereby we decided to expand the proposal from the Ghana Football Association to include other disciples because we didn’t want to restrict ourselves to only football.
''We thought about it that the moment we attend to the GFA, Ghana Olympic Committee and others will come and demand that it must also apply to them. In the nutshell, we decided to meet the mother body, the National Sports Authority to have discussions and deliberations on how best the Agency can support our young men and women who have taken sports as their profession, lawyer Kodua stated.
The ceremony was witnessed by top government officials including YEA Board Chairman, Sammi Awuku, NSA Board Chairman Kwadwo Baah Agyemang, Chief Executive Officer of NSA Prof. Peter Twumasi, Special Advisor to the Minister of Youth and Sports, Magnus Rex Danquah, Ghana Football Association President, Kurt E.S. Okraku, Ghana Olympic Committee President, Ben Nunu Mensah among others.