GFA Spokesman Calls for Parliament to Ban Airing Of Foreign Leagues On Local TV Stations

There is no doubt measures are needed to fix an ailing Ghana Premier League but this call is more of a joke than a measure.

I have heard some ridiculous ideas in my day but this must be up there with the best (worst) of them. Seriously if these kind of ideas are what is being propounded to fix Ghana football it’s no wonder we aren’t going anywhere.

The GFA communication head made the call in an interview with an Accra based radio station Montie FM, as reported by Starrfmonline.

“In England, parliament has introduced a law that does not allow their local free to air television stations to show foreign league games live. They only allow pay-per-view stations like Supersport to show the foreign leagues”

“So, in response I think the Parliaments in Africa, especially in Ghana must introduce a law that stops our local TV stations from showing live EPL matches”

Whilst it might sound like a fine idea in principle, what does it really change? On the list of reasons why patronage of the Ghana league is so low, watching foreign leagues ranks really low.

There is the terrible football on offer, even worse pitches, dodgy officiating, the list goes on and on. Unless he’s saying having something to compare to is making us to ditch our vastly inferior league.

Also honestly, how many matches do the free-to-air stations show? TV3has a Premiership game on Saturday afternoon, Metro and GTV a Bundesliga game later that same afternoon. Both matches are in a fixed time slot, and frankly the most interesting matches are never played within that time slot.

People pay to watch the most interesting matches week in, week out, and those are on Supersport. The games shown on free to air stations are negligible, and a ban would make as much difference as nipples on a breastplate.

Besides those matches are shown on a Saturday, the Ghana league is played primarily on Sundays.

This FA has done a lot of good work since coming into office, especially with the male senior teams, and even a couple of the female ones. Where they have failed drastically, is making the local league into the force it once was in the 90’s and early 00’s.

Many people watch the foreign leagues, yes, and they pay to do so. Banning the two games a week on Tv is not changing much, and they should put their energies into fixing the broke league rather than calling for useless legislations like this one.