The Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) will establish a sports fund which will among other determine how funds are disbursed to national teams as bonuses and appearance fees.
This, according to the Head of Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at MoYS, Alhaji Sani Mohammed Adams, would curb the uncertainties associated with appearance fees and bonuses at international competitions including the Qatar World Cup.
At the recently held eSports Summit in Accra, Alhaji Adams said, “indeed MoYS is looking at the sustainability of funding for the teams in terms of bonuses and appearance; we believe the establishment of a sports fund will help address these concerns.
Theidea of the fund, he explained, has been with MoYS for a long time, “an agenda we have been pushing and discussing even at cabinet level for implementation.”
MoYS, he said, would also put in place measures to ensure that corporate entities that support sports, would receive specific incentives.
“We are providing a direction for a policy for sports in Ghana. We have had a national sports policy that has been sitting on our desks for over 30 to 40 years. We are reviewing it to give direction to sports particularly football and other sports that we think we have comparative advantage,” he stressed.
He said, personal motivation was very paramount to the performance of the Black Stars and other national teams and proper investments must be put into such activities.
“There is no negotiations with regard to the performance of the Black Stars. Ghanaians are so passionate about football and expect a lot from the national team,” he said.
“And because performance is non-negotiable, it is presumed that we need to put more investment into it. We need to invest in infrastructure, personnel, systems and structures, policies and procedures as well as promotion and marketing,” he stressed.
“In some jurisdictions, wearing of the national colours was enough motivation but in countries like Ghana it might just not be enough.
“For us as a ministry, we are looking at sports as pure business so it would require the necessary support and investment,” he stated.
Alhaji Adams called for a conscious effort to make the national teams very competitive to entice investment.
He said, in coming out with the policy document and formulating a legislative framework, the ministry would be conscious about the independent nature of the football federation amidst the fact that the national teams belonged to the state.
“We need to make our games attractive but we are also in a hurry to take our players out of the country. What we need to know is that, the internal clubs need to be strengthened to make football attractive to all,” he explained.
BY MICHAEL D. ABAYATEYE
