KESSBEN SALE, FA FAILURE (LEAD STORY, GRAPHIC SPORTS, AUGUST 6, 2010)

VETERAN football administrator, Jonathan Abbey Pobee, says the decision by Mr Kwabena Kesse to sell the premiership status of Kessben FC to Medeama SC is symptomatic of the failure of the current FA to promote the local game.
According to him the FA had not done anything to generate interest in the local game and it was not surprising that an astute businessman like Mr Kesse sold his club in order not to run into serious financial difficulties.
While commending Mr Kesse for that bold decision, Mr Pobee, who is the chairman of Kumasi-based Neoplan Stars, said the FA “must sit up or else more clubs would follow suit.”
Speaking to the Graphic Sports in Kumasi yesterday, Mr Pobee said the FA appears to place so much emphasis on the Black Stars to the neglect of the local teams.
“Even with the Black Stars, I can say that it is not the FA that has changed things for the better.
“It is the politicians who want to make political gains from the success of the Black Stars that has seen governments doing everything to grow the team,” he said.
Mr Pobee questioned how the FA management used the monies from the 1996 and 2010 World Cups.
“In neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire and Togo, they used the proceeds from their participation in the 1996 World Cup to support local clubs, including even colts teams but the same cannot be said of Ghana,” he said.
The football administrator further indicated that the CAF’s slashing of Ghana’s slots in Africa competitions from four to two was also an indicator of how the FA had run down local football.
“It is absurd for them (FA management) to think that the clubs should be left to do their own thing.
“I am therefore calling for a revolution at the management level of the FA because we deserve better,” he stressed.
Mr Pobee accused Mr Randy Abbey, former Executive Chairman of Kessben FC, for doing virtually nothing to justify his position in the defunct club.
“If you have a whole spokesman of the FA as the Executive Chairman of a club and yet he fails to live up to expectation, you begin to think about what is happening in the FA where he is the spokesman.
“For me, Mr Kesse’s decision is the best to be taken by any business person under those circumstances because he couldn’t have continued to run the club at a loss.
He encouraged him to take his decision to enter into football academy serious “because the way I see the man, he can make it big in that area.”