‘Utterances of football family driving away potential sponsors’

General Secretary of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Mr Prosper Harrison Addo, says the denigration of the Association and its products by its own members, is hampering their progress in terms of securing sponsorship for the Ghana Premier League (GPL) and other products under its belt.

Since taking office last October, the Association, led by its president Kurt Okraku is yet to secure a headline sponsor for the premier league as well as the other leagues – a situation that seems to be having a huge financial burden on the clubs as well as the GFA as a body.

In the view of the general secretary, his outfit is working around the clock to get headline sponsors as well as category sponsors for the premier league and other products of the Association.

However, he says the association’s efforts “seem to be hitting a snag as some potential sponsors have often been drawn back by the action and inaction’s of people in the football family.”

“When you go to a company to seek for sponsorship, the first remark they make is ‘this FA what we hear about you is not good;’ so how do you expect us to come and put money in there.”

According to Mr Harrison Addo, this is one huge challenge the GFA as an institution is faced with and believes “the time has come for the football family to have a change of mind in the way and manner they go about their activities and what they say.”

“The association is for all; so if one goes about insulting and maligning the whole institution because he or she does not agree to a decision or action by it, when you do that you are shooting yourself.”

He noted that in the face of this and other challenges, the FA is doing everything possible to make headway in term of landing some sponsorship and would soon come out with an announcement.

“In the face of the unfortunate situation, all the units under the GFA are working their socks off to make a head way, he told Joy FM in an interview at the weekend.