ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana has decided to dissolve its national football association a day after officials, including the body’s president, were shown in a documentary taking kickbacks, the information minister said on Thursday.

The two-hour documentary, “When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm” by undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, was provided to the authorities last month before being screened in public for the first time on Wednesday.

Ghana Football Association (GFA) President Kwesi Nyantakyi did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The GFA said it would cooperate with any investigation.

Nyantakyi, who is also a member of the FIFA Council, the world football body’s legislative organ, was filmed in a hotel room taking a $65,000 bribe from a supposed businessman seeking to sponsor the Ghanaian football league.

Information Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said in a statement that the government was shocked and outraged at the contents of the documentary and would refer the alleged culprits to the police for investigation.

“Having regard to the widespread nature of the apparent rot involving top GFA officials, NSA (National Sports Authority) officials, match commissioners, football administrators and referees, Government has decided to take immediate steps to have the GFA dissolved,” he said.

He said the government would soon announce provisional measures to govern football activities until a new association could be formed.</s>Ghana has decided to dissolve its national football association a day after officials, including the body's president, were shown in a documentary taking kickbacks.

The two-hour documentary, When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm by undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, was provided to the authorities last month before being screened in public for the first time on Wednesday.

Ghana Football Association (GFA) president Kwesi Nyantakyi did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The GFA said it would cooperate with any investigation.

Nyantakyi, who is also a member of the FIFA Council, the world football body's legislative organ, was filmed in a hotel room taking a $65,000 (A$85,000) bribe from a supposed businessman seeking to sponsor the Ghanaian football league.

Information Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said in a statement that the government was shocked and outraged at the contents of the documentary and would refer the alleged culprits to the police for investigation.</s>ACCRA: Ghana has decided to dissolve its national football association a day after officials, including the body's president, were shown in a documentary taking kickbacks, Information Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said on Thursday.

The two-hour documentary, "When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm" by undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, was provided to the authorities last month before being screened in public for the first time on Wednesday.

Association President Kwesi Nyantakyi did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Football Association said it would cooperate with any investigation.</s>The government of Ghana has dissolved the country’s football association following a corruption scandal that hit top officials in the authority.

According to the country's information minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid “the government had decided to take immediate steps to have the GFA (Ghana Football Association) dissolved” because of the “widespread nature of the apparent rot”.

The shocking expose filmed over two years by an investigative journalist was screened in the country's capital Accra on Wednesday.

Abdul-Hamid said the expose sent chills down the spine of Ghanaians and that the government was “shocked and outraged” at the claims, which included referees apparently accepting bribes of at least $100 to throw matches.

The football association boss Kwesi Nyantakyi was also caught on camera allegedly requesting $11 million from undercover reporters posing as investors to secure government contracts.

He also apparently tried to profit personally from a $5 million-a-year, five-year sponsorship deal with the GFA in what the expose said was a “clear breach” of ethics.

The information minister said the documentary “exposes gross malfunctioning of the Ghana Football Association characterised by widespread fraud, corruption and bribery”.</s>The Ghana Football Association (GFA) has been dissolved by the government after explosive revelations of bribe-taking by referees and kickbacks to top officials that have shocked the football-mad nation.

Information minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said the government had “decided to take immediate steps to have the GFA (Ghana Football Association) dissolved” because of the “widespread nature of the apparent rot”.

The GFA had earlier pledged to tackle corruption in the wake of a long-awaited undercover documentary unveiled in Accra on Wednesday night, just over a week before the start of the World Cup finals.

Hidden camera footage purportedly showed referees taking as little as $100 (85 euros) each to rig matches.

It further alleged that GFA President Kwesi Nyantakyi, a senior member of world governing body FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF), requested $11 million from reporters posing as investors to secure government contracts.

He also allegedly tried to profit personally from a $5 million-a-year, five-year sponsorship deal with the GFA in what the expose said was a “clear breach” of ethics.

The information minister said the government, which has pledged to cut corruption in the country, was “shocked and outraged” at the claims.

The documentary “exposes gross malfunctioning of the Ghana Football Association characterised by widespread fraud, corruption and bribery”, he said in a statement.

The conduct of all GFA officials and the suspended Director-General of the National Sports Authority (NSA), Robert Sarfo Mensah, was referred to police for further investigation and any “appropriate action”, he added.

Provisional measures will be put in place to run the sport in Ghana until a new body is formed. CAF and FIFA will be kept informed, he said.

“Government will see to it that the necessary reforms are urgently undertaken to sanitise football administration in the country,” the minister stated.

The GFA said it had not seen the documentary, which has sparked concerns about media freedom in Ghana after the journalist responsible received death threats.

But it said in a statement: “We view the allegations circulating in the media very seriously and would wish to take immediate steps to address them.”

It added: “The GFA wishes to place on record that, there will be no attempt of a cover-up or shield any of our members caught in alleged acts of corruption.

“The GFA wishes to assure all that as an institution it does not condone any manner of corrupt practices.”

The governing body said it had previously acted swiftly against claims of match-fixing.

In 2014, Britain’s Channel 4 television and the Daily Telegraph newspaper claimed Nyantakyi agreed a $170,000-deal for Ghana’s national side to play in a friendly organised by match-fixers.

Ghana’s senior men’s team, the Black Stars, have not qualified for the World Cup finals in Russia, which include two teams from West Africa; Nigeria and Senegal.

At the last tournament in Brazil in 2014, Ghana’s previous government chartered a plane to send more than $3 million in cash to players in a row over appearance fees.

That decision caused a scandal back home as the country struggled with spiralling inflation, a yawning budget deficit and depreciating currency.

Diplomats, lawmakers, government ministers and members of the public packed a conference centre in Accra to watch the first screening of the two-hour documentary on Wednesday.

Football fan Simon Gyamfi said afterwards it was a “wake-up call” for the national game, adding: “I hope it will lead to a total clean-up in Ghanaian football.

“There is so much corruption in the system… The entire Ghana FA executive must be scrapped. What we have just seen is a total disgrace to the beautiful game.”

The documentary is the work of secretive investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who has previously exposed graft in the judiciary.

After watching an advance private screening, President Nana Akufo-Addo complained to police that Nyantakyi had “used the President’s name and office fraudulently”.

Nyantakyi was then questioned and released pending further investigation.

A lawmaker from Akufo-Addo’s ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has since accused Anas of being corrupt and insinuated he should be killed and his colleagues beaten up.</s>Accra: The governing body of world football on Friday announced a 90-day suspension on the president of the Ghana Football Association, who has been at the centre of corruption claims.

FIFA said its ethics committee had "provisionally banned" Kwesi Nyantakyi from "all football activities at both national and international level" with immediate effect.

The suspension is pending an investigation into whether he had broken FIFA's code of ethics, it added in a statement.

Nyantakyi was this week accused in an undercover documentary of requesting $11 million from reporters posing as investors to secure government contracts.

He also allegedly tried to profit personally from a $5 million-a-year, five-year sponsorship deal with the GFA.

Ghana's government on Thursday said the documentary had exposed "gross malfunctioning... characterised by widespread fraud, corruption and bribery" at the GFA.

Steps were now being taken to dissolve the body, said information minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid.

The conduct of all GFA officials and the suspended head of the National Sports Authority was referred to police for further investigation and any "appropriate action", he added.

Football is Ghana's national sport and the revelations have sent shockwaves through the country, just under a week before the start of the World Cup finals in Russia.

Before the last tournament in Brazil in 2014, Nyantakyi was accused of signing a $170,000-deal for Ghana to play in a friendly organised by match fixers.</s>ZURICH/ACCRA, June 8 (Reuters) - The head of Ghana's soccer federation, Kwesi Nyantakyi, said on Friday he had resigned after he was suspended by global soccer body FIFA for possible ethics violations having been accused of taking kickbacks.

Nyantakyi, a member of FIFA's decision-making Council, also apologised to Ghana president Nana Akufo-Addo and the government for what he called his "indiscretion".

"After a meeting of the Executive Committee this afternoon I decided to resign as President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA)," he said in a statement.

Nyantakyi, who has been GFA president since 2005 and was elected to the FIFA Council in September 2016, was filmed by an investigative journalist in a hotel room appearing to take a $65,000 bribe from a supposed businessman seeking to sponsor the Ghanaian football league.

FIFA said on Friday it was suspending Nyantakyi for 90 days. The Ghanaian government has begun a process to dissolve the national soccer body, Information Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said on Thursday.

On Friday, Ghana's police locked down the GFA offices, declaring the building a crime scene.

Segments of the recording by undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas appeared to show Nyantakyi also demanding kickbacks to pass on to top government officials, including the presidency.

Ghana president Nana Akufo-Addo has called for criminal investigations against Nyantakyi.

FIFA has not yet commented on whether any action will be taken over the government's plan to dissolve the GFA.

The global soccer body does not accept any third party, including government, interference in its member associations.

It could respond by suspending Ghana's membership, which would mean the country's national teams could no longer compete in international competition.

Ghana, who have played at three previous World Cups, missed out on the this year's tournament which starts in Russia on June 14. (Reporting by Brian Homewood and Kwasi Kpodo, Editing by Christian Radnedge and Toby Davis)</s>Ghana has dissolved its national football association after its president was filmed apparently accepting a “cash gift”. Kwesi Nyantakyi was pictured taking $65,000 (£48,000) from an undercover reporter pretending to be a businessman keen to invest in Ghanaian football.

Mr Nyantakyi is vice-president of the Confederation of African Football and also a member of the Fifa Council.

He has not commented on the allegations.

How Fifa, football’s world governing body, will react to the decision to dissolve the body remains to be seen. Its laws do not allow government interference in football administration, and it has previously banned countries, including Nigeria, from international competition for falling foul of the rule.

Ghana, who did not qualify for the World Cup Finals, played Iceland on Thursday night, after the allegations emerged.

Correspondents say the undercover investigation by controversial journalist Anas Aremayaw Anas has raised questions about the nature of football in Africa.

His documentary, entitled When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm, was handed to authorities last month and publicly screened for the first time on Wednesday.

BBC Africa’s new investigations unit, Africa Eye, has had exclusive access to the footage.

It shows more than 100 football officials – most of them West African referees – receiving cash gifts, despite Fifa rules expressly forbidding it.

Among those caught on camera was Kenyan referee Adel Range Marwa, who was bound for the World Cup in Russia until he resigned after he was filmed receiving a $600 “gift”. He denies any wrongdoing.

Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, Ghana’s information minister, said the government had “decided to take immediate steps to have the GFA [Ghana Football Association] dissolved”, citing the “widespread nature of the apparent rot”.

He said interim measures to govern Ghanaian football would be announced soon, pending the formation of a new association.

The GFA said in a statement that it would co-operate with any investigation.

Since taking charge of the GFA, Mr Nyantakyi has made tackling corruption a major part of his message.

However, the undercover film shows him apparently placing the $65,000 “shopping money” into a black plastic bag. He is under investigation for fraudulently using Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo’s name – by order of the president himself.

The filmmaker’s team had invited Mr Nyantakyi to a luxury hotel in the Middle East with the promise of meeting a wealthy businessman they said was interested in a sponsorship deal with the GFA.

In the film, Mr Nyantakyi went on to both negotiate and write up the sponsorship deal on behalf of the GFA, which could have allowed a cut to go to a company he owned.

Correspondents say that had the fictitious deal gone ahead, he could potentially have made $4.5m from the diversion of funds. BBC</s>CEO of Zylofon group of companies Nana Appiah Mensah has called on the government of Ghana to exercise patience in its quest to sanitize the Ghana Football Association (GFA) after several stakeholders of the game were caught on camera receiving monies suspected to be bribes in the Anas exposé.

The President of the Republic of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in response to public outcry for action after watching the premiering of the Anas exposé, announced on Thursday its decision to dissolve the Ghana Football Association (GFA).

READ MORE: Ex-Man United attacker Depay is on holidays in Ghana

Nana Appiah Mensah whose company Zylofon Cash in barely a month ago injected a reported amount of $10m into the running of the domestic league as the headline sponsor of the Ghana Premier League for a five year period, believes that government shouldn’t take a hasty decision into dissolving the GFA based on a secret video recording.

The dissolution of the GFA implies that all activities of the football governing body in the country will come to a halt including the Zylofon Premier League, MTN FA Cup and the activities of the various national teams.

Meanwhile, Ghana could suffer a ban a FIFA for the decision to dissolve the Ghana Football Association (GFA).</s>(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Ghana has announced her resolve to dissolve its National Football Association a day after officials, were shown a documentary of an alleged taking kickback.

Information Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid alleged that the FA President Kwesi Nyantakyi was involved in the scandal.

The two-hour documentary, titled: “When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm’’, by undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, was provided to the authorities last month before being screened in public for the first time Wednesday.

The FA head is yet to respond to multiple requests for comment.

However, the body said it would cooperate with any investigation.
Ghanian Minister of Information Mustapha Abdul-Hamid announces the decision to dissolve the Ghana Football Association following the publication of an exposé of the organisation by Anas Aremeyaw Anas.