Of local league and continental blues

This weekend must be a loaded one on our sporting calendar as the Premier League kicks off, alongside the hosting of two continental club matches in Accra and Tamale.

By the FA’s revised fixtures for the Premier League, some matches necessarily have to be rescheduled to give way for the Bechem United versus MC Algier of Algeria first leg match at the Accra Stadium and the Wa All Stars versus Al Ahli of Tripoli game in Tamale.

Consequently, the Premier League Board (PLB) has announced the postponement of the Accra Great Olympics-Bechem United encounter and the Wa All Stars-Elmina Sharks game, both of which have been declared outstanding, while the Inter Allies and Hearts of Oak clash has been pushed to Monday.

Ideally, we would have expected a kick-off to the league to involve all the clubs, as it is the surest way of igniting interest among the fans across the centres.

But given the situation now, it is our concern that patronage of some of these rescheduled matches stands to suffer when they come to be played.

Our other concern has to do with the likelihood of the league programme going haywire, as several postponed matches will be in the pipeline as our clubs progress in Africa and other unforeseen exigencies come up.

Indeed, aside from the continental club matches, we also have the World Cup and African Cup group qualifying games by the Black Stars which could also occasion the league’s postponement or some matches of its matches, now that some local players may become active in the Stars with Avram Grant’s departure.

Grant had been chastised for his exclusion of players from the local league from the national team, including even Latif, who was named the best player last season, and it appears whoever takes over the Stars will have the jitters going that path.

There certainly will be challenges for Ashford Tettey Oku’s PLB in the management of the league, as we see the prospects to be dire in the unlikely event of litigious issues cropping up.

Already, some club managers are fuming with rage over supposed non-declaration of all documents regarding the media sponsorship of the competition by StarTimes, the first round of which action aborted the season-opening gala.

For sure we do not envy the PLB nor the Executive Committee (ExCo) of the GFA, as they will have to pull all the managerial expertise under their sleeve to ensure that the competition meets its timeline as rescheduled after the two false starts.

We want to seize the opportunity to appeal to all the stakeholders, particularly the fans, to patronise the league by being at the various centres to support their respective clubs as the competition gets started on Sunday.

We hope that the teams have been energised enough by the long rest to kick off on Sunday with a bang for the fans to savour the expected display.

Meanwhile, we wish our continental representatives (Wa All Stars and Bechem United) all the best in their home matches. They must both win!