For the best part of the last two weeks, football lovers in Ghana have tried to make sense of hooliganism, following the fatal stabbing of Francis ‘‘Nana Pooley’’ Frimpong.
Part of the introspection has been, in keeping with human nature, an attempt to understand the role of each stakeholder in this.
Club owners, football administrators, fans, the Ghana Football Association, and in some cases, the Ghana Police Service, have all been blamed for what has been a pointless game of pinball.
Yet, the dust is already beginning to settle.
The partisan, prejudiced views and perfunctory statements are starting to give way to the real issues.
Old habits die hard. That is why, even before Nana Pooley’s corpse could be lowered into the ground, condemned to disintegrate into nothingness, the real actors and sponsors of hooliganism, could not hide their true selves for long.
On Sunday, players and officials of Elmina Sharks attacked referee Esso Doh Morrison after the club’s 1-0 loss to Swedru All Blacks in a Division One League match.
Footage from the match showed Jay Asamoah Kola, a player of Elmina Sharks, fighting off police officers and assaulting the match referee with a stone.
A few hours after the match, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, the founder and president of Elmina Sharks, was on GTV to discuss the matter.
In an ostensibly combative but ultimately self-incriminating rant, Dr. Nduom said “Some people take certain portions of a video and say the fans in Elmina are hooligans when they don’t understand what happened. Don’t take a clip and say, Shouldn’t someone take responsibility?,” he quizzed.
“It is the GFA. They take responsibility. They must make everybody safe. They must make the games entertaining; they must pay the referees appropriately and pay everybody well, not just take FIFA money and go and rest somewhere.”
You read it right. It is all the Ghana Football Association’s fault, according to Dr. Nduom.
The GFA is singularly responsible for the cancer of hooliganism, he says.
Even if true, the truth is that Dr. Nduom’s club is a direct beneficiary of the GFA’s relaxed enforcement of its club licensing regulations.
Had the club licensing board done its job and not pandered to poorly-run football clubs, entities like Elmina Sharks would have long been demoted from the Division One League, or fixed up and ensured strict compliance with the match-day security protocols.
The same explains the licensing board’s approval of the wretched playing surface at the Nduom Sports Complex, as they did for many others across the country in a similar state.
They would not have abandoned the Matchday Stewards program, which was instituted while they were in the Ghana Premier League. Rather, they would have strengthened it and by now, be able to keep the rowdy supporters away from match officials.
If Elmina Sharks had a semblance of decency and good corporate governance, the club would have by now condemned the conduct of Jay Asamoah Kola, the player who assaulted referee Morrison and taken disciplinary action against him.
Kelvin Aboagye, the club’s General Manager who also incited fans and attempted to attack the referee, should have been fired by now.
But those are measures you would expect from well-run businesses that are sensitive about their brand and the perception their immediate publics have.
In typical fashion, Dr. Nduom concluded his long speech about nothing, with a subtle threat to quit investing in Ghana Football.
Beyond the corrosive, self-destructive mindset of Dr. Nduom and his club, the episode exposes who the true sponsors and actors of hooliganism are.
They are the footballers – like Jay Asamoah Kola, who have the civility of Neanderthals, and believe they have the right to physically attack match officials.
They are the club administrators – like Kelvin Aboagye, who are not capable of thinking through the chaos and calmly resolving differences, except to resort to violence.
They are the club owners who come into the business with no proper sustainability plan or community engagement schemes to grow the brand but superintend over dysfunctional, often structure-less clubs until their investment into football is no longer relevant to their political ambitions.
At that point, they scream to the heavens that the football business in Ghana does not offer value for money.
We saw two of them in February; Dr. Nduom and Ignatius Baffour Awuah. The latter was in court today to defend his innocence in a murder trial.
They are the very football owners who sit on the Executive Council and other powerful positions at the GFA and look on blindly as the people’s game keeps rotting with each passing day.
The men and women who bend rules and principles at will, without a care in the world.
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