Ghana Premier League cancelled by Ghana Football Association amid coronavirus pandemic
The Ghana Premier League suffers a big blow after Ghana Football Association (GFA) announcing cancellation of the competition on 30 June.
The fate of Ghana league restart depended much on the GFA Executive Council meeting on Tuesday where there was a deliberation on future of the league that has since been halted in March due to deadly coronavirus pandemic.
Futball Surgery can exclusively confirm that the 2019-2020 football season including the Ghana Premier League has been cancelled in what was one outcome of the Executive Council’s meeting on Tuesday.
“The Executive Council of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), has taken a decision to cancel the 2019/20 football season following a marathon meeting on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 at the GFA Secretariat in Accra.”
“The GFA has been engaging Government, CAF and FIFA and on the way forward for the season following which the Executive Council has finally taken a decision to cancel the season after considering all the key factors.”
“The Executive Council also decided that per the relevant provisions of the CAF inter-club football Regulations, Asante Kotoko SC and AshGold SC will represent Ghana in the CAF Champions League and the Confederations Cup respectively.”
“The Executive Council will meet on Thursday, July 9, 2020 to discuss all issues relating to the next football season and Congress.”
“The GFA will continue its engagement with all sponsors and all stakeholders following the cancellation of the season.”
Aduana Stars led the Ghana Premier League table with 28 points, behind the Dormaa based side was Berekum Chelsea who had 26 points while giants Asante Kotoko sat third on the log three points from the top position with a game in hand before the cancellation.
After the government of Ghana lifting the lockdown rule in April, there has been dichotomy of opinion about the future of the Ghana Premier.
While majority of football administrators and vibrant supporters’ groups calling for the league’s cancellation, only small portion of people in the country supported restart of the 2019-2020 season- with the GFA not issuing any updates until Tuesday, 30 June.
However, prior to Tuesday’s meeting, there was a growing body of rumours that the GFA through the Executive Council will completely overlook the season’s restart despite any such decision would incur huge amount of financial loss to the GFA, government and football clubs.
According to latest reports, the season’s cancellation has cost the GFA a total of $2.2million dollars at a glance with further loss expected to hit the football governing body in the future.
The financial cost on clubs are yet to be revealed, however, they will lose gate proceeds from the Ghana Premier League, FA Cup, Division One and Women’s League that have all been cancelled.
And in particular for the Ghana Premier League, it has been two years now without its completion in a single season since it was terminated in 2018 due to bribery and corruption scandals.
In 2019, while there was a period of normalization, the Normalization Committee (NC) Special Competition only replaced the Ghana Premier League on the GFA football calendar- where Asante Kotoko won the Tier One title.
In the current season, it has been cancelled due to covid-19 pandemic- that first put the league on suspension back in March before landing its cancellation in June 30.
In the pphase of the development, Asante Kotoko will represent Ghana in the CAF Champions League while Ash Gold take the Confederation Cup slut for the 2020/2021 season.
Connect with Futball Surgery
