Ghana Football Association

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Ghana Football Association did not begin with a grand ceremony or a government decree. It began with a revolution. In 1957, a man named Ohene Djan led a campaign that toppled the sitting football administration, seized the chairman's seat, and formally constituted a new body in the same year Ghana declared independence from British rule. What followed was six decades of triumphs, scandals, a dissolution ordered by a government minister, and a long, complicated process of rebuilding from scratch. How did football take root in the Gold Coast, and who planted it? What drove the country's teams to win the Africa Cup of Nations four times over? And how did a single documentary film bring the entire association to its knees in 2018?

• 2. Football Arrives by Sea

  ›

  European merchants brought association football to the Gold Coast near the end of the 19th century, playing among themselves in the forts and castles they had built along the coast for trade. Sailors joined in, and soon so did the local population. The sport's spread was quick and coastal, moving from port to port before pushing inland.

  The first formal football club, Excelsior, was founded in 1903 by Mr. Briton, a Jamaican-born British citizen who served as Head Teacher of Philip Quaque Government Boys School in Cape Coast. Other clubs followed: Accra Hearts of Oak, Accra Standfast, Cape Coast Venomous Vipers, Cape Coast Mysterious Dwarfs (which later became Cape Coast Ebusua Dwarfs), Sekondi Hasaacas, and Sekondi Eleven Wise. Cape Coast and Accra became the first colonial cities in sub-Saharan Africa to host formal football leagues.

  After a weak start in 1915, the league properly kicked off in 1922. Accra Hearts of Oak won that inaugural season and took home the Guggisberg Shield, named after Sir Gordon Guggisberg, the British governor who started the Accra Football League. The clubs that would define Ghanaian football for generations were already taking shape on those early coastal pitches.

• 3. The Akwei Dispute and the Revolution

  ›

  Towards the end of 1930, the existing clubs gathered and elected Richard Maabuo Akwei as chairman of what would become the Gold Coast Amateur Football Association. He held that position for roughly two decades. In 1952, the Gold Coast government enacted Ordinance 14, which established the Gold Coast Amateur Sports Council and gave the government legal authority over all amateur associations, including football.

  By the middle of 1950, a coalition of clubs spearheaded by Ohene Djan had grown deeply dissatisfied with Akwei's leadership. They accused him of maladministration and addressed formal petitions to both the Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, and the Pioneer Sports Organizer, Joseph Ranadurai. While those petitions were being processed, Ohene Djan did not wait. He led what the historical record calls a "Football Revolution" and succeeded in removing Akwei from the chairmanship in 1957.

  In that same year, the clubs elected Djan as General Secretary of the new Football Association and the Ghana Amateur Football Association was formally established. He moved quickly from there: the Association affiliated with FIFA in 1958 and with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in 1960. Djan also secured the first FA cup sponsorship from a pharmaceutical firm, Merrs R.R. Harding and Company, brought in expatriate coach George Ainsley for the national team, and in 1959 organized the first national league, all before Ghana became a republic on the 1st of July, 1960.

• 4. Four Cups and Olympic History

  ›

  In 1963, the Ghana Amateur Football Association won the bid to host the 5th Africa Cup of Nations, timed to coincide with the Meeting of the Organisation of African Unity Heads of State in Accra. Ghana won the tournament on home soil. Two years later, the team successfully defended the title in Tunisia in 1965.

  A thirteen-year gap followed before Ghana hosted and won the 13th AFCON in 1978. Then four years after that, in Tripoli, Libya, Ghana won the cup a fourth time. Those four victories, in 1963, 1965, 1978, and 1982, place Ghana alongside Cameroon as the second most successful country in AFCON history.

  At the youth level, Ghana has been even more striking. The country won the FIFA World Under-17 title twice and finished runner-up twice. It also finished second at the FIFA World Youth Championship twice. Then in 1992, Ghana became the first African country to win a medal in football at the Summer Olympics. In 2009, the under-20 side became the first African country to win the U-20 FIFA World Cup, defeating Brazil in the final.

  Despite that record at youth level, the senior team did not qualify for a FIFA World Cup until 2006. The 1993 Winneba Declaration had helped by ending the amateur era, allowing clubs to incorporate as limited liability companies under Act 179, 1963, and opening the door to professional football. Ghana last hosted the AFCON in January 2008 and qualified for the 2017 edition by finishing top of Group H in the qualifying stages.

• 5. Number 12 and the Dissolution

  ›

  On the 7th of June, 2018, Ghana's Minister of Sport, Isaac Kwame Asiamah, dissolved the Ghana Football Association with immediate effect. The order came after investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas released his documentary, titled Number 12: When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm. The film, shot undercover, documented referees and association officials accepting bribes. Former Sports Minister Asiamah publicly referred to Kwesi Nyantakyi, who had served as GFA president from 2005 to 2018, as a "former president" from the moment the dissolution was announced.

  The fallout was severe. The 2018 Ghanaian Premier League was cancelled outright. FIFA banned Ghana from international competition until further notice. A separate investigation by The Telegraph and Channel 4 had already accused Nyantakyi and other officials of match-fixing, though those allegations were limited to international friendlies and did not implicate matches played at the 2014 World Cup. Nyantakyi denied the match-fixing claims, stating that the report "is entirely not accurate" and that there was "really no cause for alarm as far as I am concerned, because nothing untoward has happened involving me or the Federation".

  FIFA established a Normalization Committee to oversee the GFA in the interim. The association was set to reopen in August 2019, and elections were scheduled for October of that year.

• 6. Rebuilding from Zero

  ›

  Six candidates contested the October 2019 presidential election. Kurt Okraku won. In November 2019, the Women's League Committee was assembled under chairperson Hilary Boateng, with Rosalind Amoh as vice chairperson and members including Nana Aba Anamoah, Cleopatra Nsia, Jerry Dogbatse, Nana Poku Fosu Geabour II, and Christian Isaac Mensah. Mark Addo was elected vice president that same month. In January 2020, Prosper Harrison Addo was appointed General Secretary.

  Also in early January 2020, the technical staffs of all national teams were disbanded, with the explicit goal of giving the sport a fresh start. Mercy Efua Tagoe-Quarcoo was appointed head coach of the Black Queens, assisted by Charles Anokye Frimpong. C.K. Akonnor was appointed head coach of the Black Stars, assisted by David Duncan. A new National Teams Department was created within the GFA structure, with Alex Asante, a Deputy General Secretary, serving as its acting head.

  In September 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed an appeal by Wilfred Kwaku Osei Palmer, who had sought to have the October 2019 elections nullified. On the 23rd of October, 2020, the GFA signed a partnership with Decathlon Ghana, making Decathlon the official retail partner for Black Stars kits and merchandise. That deal was extended for another four years in November 2024. On the 14th of September, 2022, Access Bank Ghana became the official banking partner in a US$250,000 one-year agreement. PUMA serves as official kit sponsor and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) sponsors the senior national teams.

  Kurt Okraku was re-elected for a second term at the GFA's 2023 Elective Congress, held in Tamale.

• 7. Legal Battles and Transfer Disputes

  ›

  Joseph Paintsil transferred from Tema Youth to Belgian club KRC Genk in 2018, setting off a legal dispute that eventually reached the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The central issue was the proper application of Article 33(5) C of the GFA statutes, which governs the payment of a percentage of training and transfer fees into a football development fund.

  The GFA's Player Status Committee and Appeals Committee both ruled in favor of the association before the case went to CAS. CAS upheld the GFA's position. Tema Youth was ordered to pay €150,000 to the GFA, €688,000 to Young Redbull FC (Paintsil's previous Ghanaian club), and €150,000 to the Ghana League Clubs Association. Tema Youth was also required to pay 4,000 Swiss Francs toward the GFA's legal costs. CAS dismissed all of Tema Youth's counterclaims.

  As a consequence of failing to settle those debts, Tema Youth, then competing in Ghana's third-tier league, faced ongoing point deductions for each match played, as well as a domestic and international transfer ban until the amounts were paid or a settlement was reached. The ruling drew a clear line between the association's legal standing and the clubs that had challenged it, a signal that the reformed GFA intended to enforce its statutes rigorously after the disruptions of 2018.