Ghana is the latest country to be policed by FIFA due to political corruption tainting football in the African nation. The GFA was raided this Tuesday and the nation’s government was ordered “to stop all its activities, including the running of the league and other football developments.” Ghana’s domestic soccer league was suspended on Wednesday due to the developing story and FIFA sent a letter to the nation’s football federation yesterday, stating “if the Ghanaian authorities did not stop their direct intervention and allow the GFA to work again before Sunday, the case would be referred to the FIFA emergency committee.”
The GFA’s duty is to run the league and apparently government often gets too involved in some of these nation’s domestic league’s affairs. I often talk about all the problems China has had with this collusion and match fixing arranged by league officials who were elected to their posts by government employees. The same goes for another African nation in Nigeria and all the problems their federation has had in the last six months between corruption and threatening to suspend the national team for dismal play in the World Cup. It appears Ghana’s government role in their soccer federation’s affairs is the newest display of this unfortunate trend in sporting culture.
As critical as I often am about the fact that FIFA is run by a bunch of deranged madmen, I still think that it is for issues like this that a governing body is needed. Somebody has to watch for these types of stories and attempt to stop these types of things from happening, so perhaps that is one of the few good uses that FIFA makes for the world of football.
But on the other hand…who is there to police FIFA from breaking the rules themselves?
Now that is a tougher question to answer.
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