NSA - No Bias Against Amputee Football

The National Sports Authority (NSA) has attributed the failure of the national amputee football team to participate in the Amputee World Cup in Mexico to internal strife among administrators of the sport.

According to the NSA, an Interim Management Committee (IMC), made up of key stakeholders with the various divisions in the association, has failed to broker peace and find a way forward as a result of entrenched positions taken by members.

This has led to a situation where the NSA and Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) has found it difficult identifying a particular group to support for the tournament.

That posture of the NSA and MoYS has attracted the fury of some key stakeholders of the team, especially Head Coach, Ali Jarra, a former goalkeeper of Accra Hearts of Oak.

Mr Jarra has described the development as a bias on the part of the two sports agencies towards the Ghana amputee football team.

But explaining the circumstance that led to the inability of Ghana to participate in the Amputee World Cup, the NSA, in a statement from its communications directorate said amputee football over the years has been characterised with infighting, disunity and lack of cohesion, resulting in three different factions, all championing the course of the amputee football in Ghana.

According to the statement, the groups are led by Rev. Richard Adesah, Mr Daniel Nii Mensah and Mr Adjetey Sowah.

It said the three factions were brought together in April, 2018 to form an IMC to manage amputee football with clear terms of reference.

The IMC was tasked to organise a national league to select a national team; make amputee football visible in the country; draft a workable and acceptable constitution for the association; provide election guide lines, time table and to organise elective congress to elect substantive national executives as well as prepare the national team for the 2018 Amputee Football World Cup in Mexico.

According to the statement, the factionalism and division within the association was so deep that, the office of the Director General of the NSA received a lot of complaints from the stakeholders and the playing body about the entrenched and uncompromising stance taken by the IMC members and the negative effect such attitude is having on it.

"Under such disjointed factionalism, it becomes very difficult for the Ministry to single out one faction to work with since that could mean supporting one faction against the others," it said.

"Besides in such international competitions, the organisers often give financial and technical support to participating teams or countries but leadership of the IMC refused to disclose the support they received, if any, from the organisers."

It said the claim that Ghana faces a 12-year ban for failing to attend cannot be substantiated and therefore not accurate, adding that the Amputee football World Cup is currently not by qualification but by invitation, hence, Ghana's participation was more of an invitation.

Furthermore, Ghana never played any qualification match (es) to earn them the right to participate.

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