Ghana Premier League: Market the league for sponsors - Baah-Nuako charges GFA

Former International Relations Manager of Kumasi Asante Kotoko, Dr Kwame Baah-Nuakoh has charged the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to sell the Ghana Premier League (GPL) to attract sponsors.

The Ghana FA and the Premier League Board (PLB), organisers of Ghana's domestic club football have been on the market in search of a sponsor for the league since First Capital Plus Bank, now Capital Bank suspended their sponsorship responsibilities indefinitely with reasons that they are restructuring.

Heads of the FA has complained of corporate bodies' reluctance to sponsor the league, and Kwame Baah Nuako has charged the FA to assess the sponsorship dearth.

He also wants the FA to ensure sponsors are given the value for money invested when they sponsor the league.

"Do we really think the sponsors get value for money? That the sponsors believe that the money that they are paying to sponsor the league, the FA, and its clubs do enough for them to get the benefits that they were assured?" Mr Nuako quizzed in an interview with Class FM.

"If I come in [as a sponsor] and every week there is violence at our league matches, you think I want to be associated with that kind of violence? When I cannot be assured of when the league will start? So, I am saying the FA and its clubs should be able to re-evaluate why every sponsor comes in and leaves; [it is] probably because they are not getting the benefit. If they are getting the benefit that they sign up for, nobody will leave,' he noted.

The Senior Vice-President, Marketing, Research and Corporate Affairs Manager of Royal Bank also called on the FA to advertise matches.

According to him, he can't fathom why the football governing body wants to be superintendents when the issue of 'who owns the league is discussed' but leaves the clubs to their fate to market their matches which indirectly means they are marketing the league on behalf of of the FA.

'I have been with the football association for years and I have always said that I think the FA also needs to pick up the mantle of advertising league matches.

"Yes, we know the clubs, they are private clubs, they have a responsibility to advertise their matches, but the product belongs to the FA. Why will somebody else sell another person's product?

"When it comes to the control and the regulation, the FA always reminds us that the league is a product of the FA, but when it comes to advertising and marketing the league, it now becomes a product of the clubs," he said.