Posted by Earlier this month, reports emerged that the Ghana Football Association (GFA) has reached an agreement with the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) to cover a total of one thousand (1000) local footballers during this COVID-19 period.
The move was to lessen the financial burden on clubs during this tough covid-19 times.
Reacting to the news, the Director of Sports at the University of Ghana, Dr Bella Bello Bitugu who was part of a panel discussing the negative effects of the COVID-19 on Happy FM and GTV Sports + ardently disagreed with the move, labeling it “a wrong move”, he went on to question the fate of the players should the Covid-19 be over.
“I heard about 1000 athletes will get government support. I don’t know if it true because this is a wrong move. If we give them these monies, what happens next? What about the federations and facilities? This won’t be sustainable.”
“Till when will the athletes receive the stipend? What will happen to these athletes when the stipends cease? If we cannot sustain them when the virus is over, then that is a problem. We keep giving them stipends and what changes?” he queried
Dr. Bella Bello went on to suggest to the government not to rush into easing the restrictions of contact sports just because of the NPP primaries.
“The fact that some people decided to disobey government orders in the NPP primaries does not mean that everything should go back to normal. It was an unfortunate and reckless action from them”, he said on Happy FM and GTV Sports +.
“With people participating who are supposed to guide us and lead us for this to happen, it was very irresponsible. It was a very shameful thing for our very people to disobey orders like that.”
“As bad as it was (disregard for COVID-19 at NPP Primaries), we can’t say we should ease the restrictions”, he added.
“The restrictions have helped curb the spread of the virus so we can’t ask government to allow contact sports to resume because of a one-off primaries.”
He also went on to reveal that the African University games supposed to come off in August this year have been postponed to 2022 due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“The African University games that was supposed to come off in August have been postponed to 2022 due this COVID-19. However, there are championships to be organized in 2021 before the African university games”.