Stars budget behind time — Ayariga laments

The Minister of Youth and Sports, Mahama Ayariga says his ministry and the Ghana Football Association are in a race against time to submit the budget for the 2015 AFCON to the Ministry of Finance before the end of the financial year.

According to the minister, he did not ask the GFA to re-work the budget because of any negatives or outrageous expenditure but for the fact that the travel plans and camping base for the team were not specific.

He said: “There have been a lot of discussions about the budget but there are no issues, we are discussing the budget because the financial year is coming to an end and the tournament starts in the third week of next year.

“If we don’t get the budget through quickly we will be caught in a bad situation because of the Christmas and New Year break so we decided that we need to finish the budget and get it through”, Mr Ayariga told the Graphic Sports last Friday at a ceremony held to unveil a sculpture in honor of Marcel Desailly.

The minister explained that he asked the GFA for specific details with regard to the travel plans and information about where the coach would like to camp the team ahead of the AFCON.

“I proposed a few changes to the budget, for instance, the travel plans. I had a different view. There was also no information from the coach about where he wants to camp the team. So, I said the budget can’t be clear if we don’t know where the team has to camp.

“We had discussed the camping base but the coach has a different view so based on that we will alter the travel plan. The budget has nothing to do with negatives or outrageousness; it may even come back higher, especially if the travel plans come back higher”.

Mr Ayariga also appealed to all Ghanaians to forget the disappointment of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and rally behind the Black Stars so they could win the 2015 AFCON in Equatorial Guinea.