Dr Kofi Amoah was the President of the Normalisation Committee when Palmer was disqualified from contesting the GFA elections

Dr Kofi Amoah: CAS ruling vindicates us

Bernard Neequaye Football Sep - 02 - 2020 , 14:29 2 minutes read

The President of the Ghana Football Association’s (GFA) Normalisation Committee (NC), Dr Kofi Amoah, has described the ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) on the case involving Wilfred Kwaku Osei (Palmer) and the association as a ‘complete vindication’ of their work.

Dr Amoah’s three-member NC disqualified Palmer from contesting the GFA’s presidential elections last October for failing to pay an amount of €300,000 to the association as 10% due the GFA for the transfer of Joseph Paintsil to Belgium giants, KRC Genk.

The FA caretaker body, acting on the recommendations of a vetting committee for the elections in 2019, stated also Palmer’s refusal to pay another $15,000 of Gabriel Laveh as basis for his disqualification from the elections.

Palmer, after several failed attempts to have his disqualification overturned, sought redress at Switzerland-based CAS, with the international judicial body for sporting disputes dismissing all four of his reliefs.

However, commenting on CAS ruling, Dr Amoah stressed that his interim GFA administration applied the statutes correctly in the decision to bar Palmer from contesting the elections.

Wilfred Kwaku Osei (Palmer)

He said that the ruling by CAS disproved claims that he carried out a personal vendetta by disqualifying Palmer.

“It’s a complete vindication which must be embraced in Ghana here that organisations that are ruled by statutes and regulations, the members of those organizations must respect those regulations and statutes. This case had nothing to do with any personality clash. I didn’t know Palmer from anywhere until I joined the Normalization Committee,” Dr Amoah said.

“We went strictly in doing our work by the mandate given to us by FIFA and by the regulations of football including the statutes and the GFA regulations. Here is a clear case of an association that has decided properly, discussed and enacted by Congress that to develop football any club that transfers a player must pay ten percent to the GFA.

"Tema Youth club is aware and so, too, is Palmer and he confirmed that to the NC. The arrogance with which he refused to do it could not establish the integrity of such a person as to come and run an organisation,” he added.