Last Sunday, October 12, was another shameful day.
We denied the average Ghanaian football fan who could not pay to go to the Accra Sports Stadium to cheer the Black Stars the hope of being part of the victory.
They were deprived of any access to watching the match on the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation sports channel, GTV Sports Plus.
The Minister of Sports and Recreation and the National Sports Council had given an assurance that monitors would be placed at vantage points for public viewing to reduce the pressure on the stadium, where seating capacity had been upgraded to 35,000.
The mention of monitors created the impression that GBC could do a live broadcast, especially as the corporation was responsible for producing the content for global viewing.
In the end, GBC could not and was not authorised to broadcast the match live across Ghana.
The other major television networks could not do live broadcasts since none of them dared to pirate with the concomitant risks that such a move could attract.
So, as Ghanaians tuned into GBC, they only saw sports analysts tugged somewhere commenting about the match, so tantalisingly, but the cameras could not focus on the pitch.
It was an agonising situation, compelling many football fans to ignorantly express expletives and swear words against the management and staff of GBC, whilst people in government and public office escaped blame, having disingeniously passed the buck, as if it was because of the bankruptcy of GBC, which denied our people the privilege of live transmission.
MPs
People in government and Members of Parliament (MPs), who pretend and suggest that the Internally Generated Fund (IGF) accrued by GBC is extra money beyond the budget allocation, are either playing the ostrich or being cynical and disingenuous.
Annually, GBC management prepares a budget for its needs and expectations.
That involves the items they would need to operate functionally and efficiently.
They also project what could potentially be earned as income from the IGF.
Afterwards, this is submitted to the government and then the projected IGF is added to what could be made available from the Consolidated
Fund and announced as government budgetary allocation for the GBC for the year.
Thus, when people in government, aware that the IGF of GBC has been absorbed into the national budget allocated to the corporation, denounce GBC for not realising enough from the IGF, that becomes doublethink, since the IGF is part of the budget, and yet they insist that GBC must generate revenue for other purposes.
As Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), I participated in a number of meetings over the acquisition of broadcasting rights for live coverage of matches of the Black Stars both with the Minister of Youth and Sports and Minister of Information, during the Nana Akufo–Addo Administration, and usually, the government raised funds for such rights, either through the Consolidated Fund or donations raised by corporate entities to enable Ghanaians to watch live coverage of Black Stars matches.
I vividly remember one meeting with the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mustafa Yussif, at which when the Chairman of the Ghana Football Association, Kurt Okraku, was informed that a delegation of the GBC, led by the Chairman of the NMC, was at the ministry to find out why GBC had not been involved in a pending Black Stars match at Cape Coast that weekend, he quipped, “Why should the chairman of the NMC be involved in this "to which I responded, "it is because it affects the credibility of GBC".
After the meeting, GBC was authorised to offer a live broadcast of the match.
GBC
Governments, since Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, have realised that GBC is not a commercial station and even if it were, revenue from live coverage could never meet the cost of the rights of live coverage and have thus at all times mobilised funds to enable GBC to broadcast all matches of the senior national team.
That has become the norm since we first qualified for the World Cup in 2006, through the qualifying series and the World Cup proper, as a social service.
In the previous administration, under the umbrella of the GBC, the broadcasting stations formed a consortium to broadcast live World Cup matches, and the private stations were to cede an agreed portion of their advertising revenue from the live coverage to GBC, as part of its IGF.
They found out that it was not a profitable business; hence, none of them is prepared to bid for the right.
Even for the newspapers, where the cost of coverage is minimal, it has never been easy.
As Editor, Daily Graphic and Director, Newspapers of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd, one of the things most dreaded was the early exit of the Black Stars from international competitions, both at the continental and global levels.
The angst and ire of the people have always been against the media whenever the Black Stars perform poorly, with cessation of adverts and a slump in circulation.
If the government and people of Ghana want GBC to finance live coverage rights for the Black Stars, beyond the national budget, it would never be possible, and it could be likened to what somebody has said about expecting the fish to climb a tree. He notes fittingly that, "If you bring a fish outside the water into the bush and expect it to climb a tree, you will come to the hasty conclusion that the fish is foolish, when it was never created to climb a tree".
The qualifying series are over, but let the government know that it has obligation to find the resources to purchase the live coverage rights from the Federation of International Football Associations, for the GBC and work out arrangements with the private stations to broadcast the content and surrender a percentage of their advertisement revenue to the GBC, to boost its IGF, which could be deployed as part of its budget for 2026.
This is what the Kufuor Administration did, and was followed by the Prof. Mills Administration, sustained by the first John Mahama Administration, imbibed by the Akufo-Addo Administration, with a proposal for continuation by the second John Mahama Administration.
This is not the time for any government to renege on the privilege we have enjoyed for generations.
What happened on Sunday, October 12, must never be recorded or repeated in our history as a football nation. Ministers Kofi Adams and Kwakye Ofosu cannot cause GBC to fail nor let our football fans down.
We must only pray that this time round, our team will do better than how they cheekily allowed Uruguay to crush our ambition on the false hope that no African country had gotten that far. Now that Morocco has set the standard, the Black Stars must go with a focused and can-do mental approach.
