Speaker of Parliament Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin believes the country’s progress in football has seen a downturn following Kwesi Nyantekyie’s ban.
The former Ghana FA president Kwesi Nyantekyie has been banned for 12 years after the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) overturned the lifetime ban on him by FIFA.
Kwesi Nyantekyie was captured in an exposé video taking $65,000 to influence deals by Anas in his Number 12 Exposé ‘When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm’ documentary.
“When we were able to bring down Kwesi Nyantakyi, we also brought down Ghana football. That’s one of the brightest spot at FIFA,” he said
“When I met the Executives of FIFA and said I was the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana, they said what happened? Why did you people do that?
“He was a dynamic addition. The value that get carried at their meetings. He was highly respected, he was very influential and Ghana football was up there.
“We thought we were handling Nyantakyi but we didn’t know we were handling the whole of Ghana.
The speaker of Parliament used FIFA executive member Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura as an example in contributing to Senegal’s success in football.
“Senegal is up there today because the Secretary General of the whole FIFA is a beautiful young lady and you can’t beat her during elections and she’s the Secretary General of FIFA. That’s Chief Executive of FIFA. You see their stadium, you see their national team.
“So please leaders don’t stand alone, they stand for something that is symbolic for the country. Criticise us, correct your children but don’t break their hands or legs it’ll affect you and that’s where we are now.
“People are calling for government to forgive Nyantakyi and bring him back to assist. We were able to perform the wonders in Nigeria because of the new technical team that we put in place. We were able to gather a potential young players of future and they were prepared to die for Ghana.