Ghana great to help run football after bribery scandal

Accra (AFP) – Former Ghana captain Abedi Pele has been appointed to help run football in the country in the wake of a corruption scandal that saw the government dissolve the sport’s governing body.

Pele, a three-time African footballer of the year who played most of his club football in Europe, was named in a five-member interim committee to manage the sport.

Other members include businessman Kofi Amoah and the president of the Ghana League Clubs Association Cudjoe Fianoo, according to a government statement on Wednesday.

Another member is Osei Kofi, who played for Ghana in the 1960s and is now a church minister.

The High Court of Ghana on Tuesday granted a request from attorney general Gloria Akuffo to suspend the Ghana Football Association and its officials.

That followed the broadcast of a documentary in which the head of the GFA, Kwesi Nyantakyi, was accused of requesting $11 million from reporters posing as investors to secure government contracts.

Nyantakyi, who was a senior member of the sport’s world governing body FIFA and regional equivalent the Confederation of African Football, has since stepped down.

Information minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said last week the documentary had highlighted “widespread fraud, corruption and bribery” at the GFA.

Urgent action was needed to “sanitise” football administration, he added.