Known among his peers and the football fraternity as the EXECUTIONER, disgraced Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey; banned for life by football’s governing authority FIFA, is an epitome of crass corruption, unprofessionalism and sheer ‘mafia-ism.’ Men like him deserves no infinitesimal inch near the cherished game of football.
He should even thank his stars that his wicked, incriminating and anti-footballing conducts have gone unpunished for over a decade. Teams in Ghana and across the continent have suffered cruelly under the sound of his corrupt whistle. Coaches sacked, hearts of many footballing fans painfully broken and teams unfairly relegated all because of his biased decisions.
He awards penalties, free-kicks, and issues red cards not because the laws of the game approve of it, however, greasing of his already greased palms is all required for the highly contested 3 points in football. Shameless men like him who have hijacked the Referees Association of Ghana (RAG) have finally succeeded in collapsing the Ghanaian League.
The once exciting league that thrilled Ghanaian football fanatics with talents like Shamo Quaye, Joe Debrah, Charles Taylor, Ishmael Addo, Stephen Oduro and Erick Bekoe is currently nothing to write home about. Referees decide who wins,and loses. Unfortunately, the regulating authority who should have long eradicated men like J. O Lamptey are more corrupt than the word corrupt, hence my decision to label them as the Ghana Fraudsters Association (GFA).
Whereas the regimes of Nyantakyi and Hayatou may permit such characters and unconscionable conducts to go unpunished, Gianni Infantino: the new FIFA boss is hell bent on cleaning the maggot infested organization he inherited from his corrupt predecessor Blatter.
It is shameful, that for all his anti-refereeing decisions in Ghana and across the continent, it took an external body to finally shoot this deadly parasite of a referee to his much deserved grave. Issah Hayatou was not just sleeping at live football matches, the continent’s entire football slept with him the last 29 years he reigned. Anyway, in the grouping of thieves, expecting them to prosecute one if their own is nothing more than utopianism.
Football’s wind of change that ousted Blatter, Jerome Valcke and recently Hayatou have not reached Ghana yet. Those managing our football like their backyard gardens and the businessmen making millions out of our Black Stars are still at post. They unashamedly force hands to make Wa All Stars our League champions and make their players the bench warmers of the Black Stars.
To serve their interests, they hide behind players to agitate for increase in winning bonuses. They are smart to make the state finance our national teams yet quickly take cover behind the mantra of NON- INTERFERENCE in football by governments whenever there are calls for government to investigate suspicious transactions.
There are so many parasites sucking the blood of Ghana football hence the anaemic status of our football. The NPP government should be bold in going after the corrupt and disgraced Ghana Fraudsters Association (GFA). The notion that Nyantakyi is an NPP man who shouldn’t be touched is sickening to say the least.
There must be a house cleaning exercise in Ghana football and we must all clamour for it. An effective, efficient and prudent management of our football will be of enormous benefits to all and sundry. In the 2014-2015 football season, the English Premier League contributed 3.26 billion pounds to the UK’s GDP.
The league and clubs supports the employment of more than 100,000 people and added 2.4 billion pounds to the UK government coffers through tax receipts in 2015. Countries like Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, France, Belgium and Colombia are making millions of dollars exporting football talents to Europe, Asia, America and other parts of the world. Our football if given the needed attention, investment, branding and and nurturing of talents will earn more for Ghana than we are currently profiting from oil and cocoa.
A nation calls for duty now!!!
Credit: MICHAEL KWADWO NKETIAH
(Writer and Activist)
