Massive corruption allegations have rocked the Referees Association of Ghana (RAG) after FIFA was ‘tricked’ to award badges to Ghanaian officials under ‘fictitious’ circumstances to make practical nonsense of the famous Anas exposé.
The referees welfare body is under siege for misleading the Normalisation Committee in sanctioning referees for the FIFA badge.
RAG has been embroiled in allegation of nepotism, cronyism, nationalism and tribalism amid widespread corruption within the body.
It has now emerged that processes leading to the sanctioning of officials for the FIFA badge was done under bizarre and shocking circumstances.
The referees body is under mounting pressure to explain the circumstances leading to the approved list by the interim Ghana FA body.
Former Ghanaian referee Silas Okine is alleging widespread corruption in the selection process. He claims the process was flawed and punctuated with several infractions.
“The NC are not on top of issues that’s why RAG is misleading them,” Okine told Happy FM’s Anopa Bosuo Sports.
“Referees have reduced their ages to enable them get badges from FIFA.”
“I was to be given a FIFA badge but I rejected it because of my age to give the young ones an opportunity”
“The NC should write to FIFA to withhold the list and use the few ones we already have to represent the country for the proper thing to be done in the remaining years”
“Our current referees haven’t reached the desired level to have FIFA badges.”
“If our hope is in the NC to fix Ghana football well then we are joking.”
“Even people from Kumasi have rejected referees’ chairman Joe Debrah.”
“Referees association is a welfare body so the GFA should dissolve it and own the referees themselves”
World governing body, FIFA has updated their list with with ten new Ghanaian referees joining the elite division.
Charles Bulu, Abdul Latif Qadiri, Benjamin Kwame Sefah and George Mawuli are new addition in the men’s category with Mary Tei the only woman to be handed a new FIFA assistant badge.
Ghana’s star referee Daniel Laryea leads the cast that includes Abdul Latif Adaari in the men’s category.
The soccer community in Ghana was left in outrage after a documentary showed around 100 referees and officials allegedly taking bribes.
Among the officials implicated by the documentary were several high-profile Ghanaian referees who have been left in the cooler after the explosive investigative piece by Anas Aremeyaw Anas.
It appears if the officials are not withdrawn, it will make practical nonsense of the scandal that was enough for the Ghana FA to be dissolved, plunging football in Ghana into crisis.