Newly-elected Vice President of the World Armwrestling Federation (WAF), Mr Charles Osei Asibey, has paid a courtesy call on the Minister for Youth and Sports, Mr Mustafa Ussif, at his office in Accra.
The visit was to formally introduce the President to the Minister and thank him and the ministry for supporting the elective Congress and the National Armwrestling Team, Golden Arms, to compete in the just-ended Africa Armwrestling Championship in Lagos, Nigeria.
The WAF veep, who doubles as the President of the Armwrestling Federation of Africa (AFA), was accompanied by AFA Vice President in charge of West Africa, Pharm. Kofi Addo Agyekum, Jesse Agyepong and Godfrey Amarteifio – both Board Members of the Ghana Armwrestling Federation (GAF).
President Osei Asibey recounted his journey to assuming the high office and acknowledged the support given to him by government including the sector minister and his ministry.
“I remember informing you weeks ago of my the intention to contest the presidency of the continental body where you encouraged me that it was in line with government’s policy of getting more Ghanaians to take up leadership roles at the continental and world level.
“It was through your encouragement and support from my Board that pushed me to go and thankfully, I won by 73 per cent of the total votes cast,” Mr Osei Asibey narrated.
He added that the Golden Arms, also through the ministry’s support, won 45 medals, 18 of them gold, 22 silver and four bronze medals to finish third on the medal table.
The AFA President, who is also the boss and founder of GAF, also thanked the minister and the Africa Union Technical Committee together with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the 2023 Africa Games for adding armwrestling as a sports code for next year’s Games.
“I have repeated severally that armwrestling will win not less than 10 gold medals at the Africa Games because we know our strength and capacity on the continent hence asking you to extend some of the support you will give to the other disciplines to armwrestling, and we will never disappoint,” he assured.
On his part, the Minister, applauded the President and his entourage for bringing honour to the country and assured him of government’s continuous support to make him succeed.
“Your success is a success for Ghana; likewise your failure. So, although there are challenges, we will still see what we can do because this achievement puts Ghana in a right place to ensure development of the sport,” he said.
AFA and GAF Veep, Mr Addo Agyekum, thanked the minister for taking time off his busy schedule to meet with them and asked the minister to use his office to give them the needed opportunities across the continent to accelerate the promotion and development of the sport.
