The Head of Player Relations at the Professional Footballers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Yussif Chibsah, says his outfit believes the Ghana Football Association (GFA) Disciplinary Committee did not have enough evidence to ban over 24 players who were involved in Premier League match alleged to have been fixed.
The GFA in May 2022, imposed sanctions on players of Ashanti Gold and Inter Allies for their alleged roles in manipulating the outcome of a league match involving the two teams.
World players’ welfare body, FIFPro on July 25, 2022, filed an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS).
“This is to confirm that the following arbitration procedure is in progress before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS): CAS 2022/A/9055 Alex Aso, Felix Abuska, Mohammed Zakari, Shaibu Taufiq, Fard Ibrahim, Richard Acquaah, Eric Esso, Amos Kofi Nkrumah, Stephen Owusu Banahene, Kwame Moses, Empem Dacosta, Frank Akoto, Isaac Opoku Agyemang, Solomon Afriyie, Mohammed Bailou, Emmanuel Owusu, Samed Mohammed, Paul Asare de Vries, Amos Addai, Abdul Kadir Mohammed and Isah Ali v. the Ghana Football Association.
“The arbitration concerns an appeal filed by the players on 25 July 2022 against the decision taken by the Appeal Committee of the Ghana Football Association on 1 July 2022,” CAS said in an email to Joy Sports’ Muftawu Nabila Abdulai.
The Court in a separate email to Muftawu Nabila Abdulai on August 15, 2022, revealed that “…the Deputy President of the CAS Appeals Arbitration Division issued an Order granting the players’ request to stay the execution of the decision taken by the Appeals Committee of the Ghana Football Association dated 1 July 2022 (the Challenged Decision) until the conclusion of the CAS proceedings. Accordingly, the Challenged Decision cannot be enforced for the duration of the CAS proceedings. In addition, the suspensions imposed on the players were lifted with immediate effect.
“In relation to the procedure CAS 2022/A/9076 Richmond Lamptey v. Ghana Football Association:
“On 12 August 2022, the Deputy President of the CAS Appeals Arbitration Division issued an Order granting Richmond Lamptey’s request to stay the execution of the decision taken by the Appeals Committee of the Ghana Football Association dated 13 July 2022 (the Challenged Decision) until the conclusion of the CAS proceedings. Accordingly, the Challenged Decision cannot be enforced for the duration of the CAS proceedings. In addition, the suspensions imposed on Richmond Lamptey were lifted with immediate effect.
“With respect to both proceedings:
“The parties are exchanging written submissions and Panels of arbitrators are being appointed to decide the matters. Once appointed, the Panels will issue directions in relation to the hearing. Once hearing dates have been set, they will be included in the list of hearings published on the CAS website. After the hearing, the Panels will deliberate and issue Arbitral Awards containing their decisions. At this time it is not possible to indicate when the Arbitral Awards will be issued to the parties.”
On May 22, 2023, CAS updated JoySports on the matter, saying that:
“The Panel of arbitrators in charge of the matters CAS 2022/A/9055 Alex Aso et al. v. Ghana Football Association and CAS 2022/A/9076 Richmond Lamptey v. Ghana Football Association held a hearing with the parties on 22 March 2023.
“The Panel is now deliberating and preparing the Arbitral Award containing its decision.
“At the time of writing, it is not possible to indicate when the Arbitral Award will be delivered to the parties.”
However, Chibsah is confident the players will be exonerated.
“We are positive because we think there wasn’t enough evidence against the players, but again we wouldn’t want to speak much since the verdict is not out, but the good thing is all the players were granted the stay of execution and that’s why they are all still playing and that is a good thing. It would have been a disaster if the players were still home and couldn’t partake in the ongoing season.
“We have had the hearing, we had the hearing in the boardroom of PFAG, and the FA was represented by their Lawyer, Naa Odofoley Nortey and we also had our Lawyers from FIFPro who represented us so now we are just waiting for the verdict from CAS.
“Since the hearing has been done, it’s close to finalising, we are just waiting for what the final decision would be,” he said.