Underfire President of the erstwhile Normalisation Committee (NC), the interim body that acted to reinstate the Ghana Football Association (GFA) back into operation, Dr Kofi Amoah, has underscored no wrong doing in an ongoing saga surrounding telecommunication company Globacom’s $1million payment to him as part of an arbitration award.
On August 17, 2017, the GFA was awarded all of its claims to the tune of $4,624,000 in an arbitration contest with Glo, former headline sponsors of the Ghana Premier League (GPL).
Dr Amoah has come under severe criticism and scrutiny from the media and the general public who contend that he should not have received the monies since he was no more in charge at the FA.
This is more so when it discovered that $100,000 was deducted from the paid monies to settle the legal fees of law firm Davies and Davies, who according to Dr Amoah, was successful in retrieving payments on the arbitration award.
Since the furore, Dr Amoah directed Mr Frank Davies of Davies and Davies to return the $100,000 to the GFA President, Mr Kurt Okraku and also to submit his invoice for his work done.
In a press statement on Tuesday that detailed the sequence of events between the NC, Glo and Davies &Davies, Dr Amoah insisted that when he assumed office he was determined to retrieve the awarded funds to assist in the NC’s operations and also to help football clubs with their financial obligations.
He revealed that initially there was correspondence between Glo and the NC but with no progress from the two sides regarding the roadmap to an amicable settlement, they engaged the services of Davies & Davies to enforce the arbitration award.
He disclosed that it was agreed in writing as well as minutes of the NC board meetings that if the law firm was able to retrieve the money, they would be paid 10 per cent of the recovered monies in tandem with the 10 per cent -25 per cent rate cards approved by the Ghana Bar Association (GBA).
As regards the remuneration of Thadeus Sory, the lawyer who won the arbitration award for the GFA, Dr Amoah said he was granted an award of $50,000 to be paid by Glo as his legal fees by the sole arbitrator, separate from the awarded monies to be paid by Glo to the GFA.
Dr Amoah intimated that difficulty by the law firm to get Glo to comply with payments after a couple of meetings necessitated a court action by the NC’s lawyers where they were granted their application for “motion on notice for leave to enforce final arbitration award.”
In light of this, Dr Amoah stated that on November 20, 2019, lawyer Davies informed him that GLo had made a down payment of $1 million cash towards the award, on which he proceeded to arrange a meeting with GFA President, Kurt Okraku who was at the time in Egypt for the Under-23 competition which featured the Black Meteors.
Upon Kurt’s return, both parties met on November 26 to discuss the handing over notes to the new administration.
At the meeting, Dr Amoah disclosed that Mr Okraku was made aware of the $1million payment from Glo as well as the 10 per cent deduction on legal fees backed by the relevant documentation to which Mr Okraku raised no objection.
It was agreed that the remaining $900,000 available was to be picked by the GFA secretary. According to Dr Amoah, the next day, a staff from the Finance Department of the GFA picked up the funds and was issued with a receipt.
Dr Amoah insist there was no undertones of corruption or wrongdoing on his part as his only interest was to retrieve monies owed the GFA in order to help with its the cash-strapped challenges.
