Soccer News of Saturday, 23 September 2017

Source: ghanasoccernet.com

Ghanaian league club president Baba Gedo confesses paying BRIBES to referees

Alhaji Baba Gedo, President of Amidaus Professionals Alhaji Baba Gedo, President of Amidaus Professionals

Alhaji Baba Gedo, President of Ghanaian first division side Amidaus Professionals, has made a shocking and brazen revelation that he is one of the arch-destroyers of football in the country by investing more than 10,000 Ghana cedis  in bribing referees to force the outcome of matches.

Gedo made this damning revelation on live radio on Wednesday, just weeks after FIFA slapped a Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey with a lifetime ban for influencing the World Cup qualification match between South Africa and Senegal in November 2016.

Gedo’s, the owner of the club in Ghana’s second tier, self-damaging revelation has now exposed how club owners who criticize the Ghana FA over the state of the game, are neck-deep wrecking football in the country through bribing referees.

In the most damning admission yet about the scale of corruption being perpetuated by ‘nation wreckers’, the self-confession has indicted the businessman and exposed him as an obnoxious character who influence the outcome of league matches and later blame the Ghana Football Association of nourishing the malaise.

The tough-talking football administrator has exposed himself as a ‘nation wrecker’ who is part of corrupt ringleaders who influence outcome of matches by bribing referees.

Gedo has been a fierce critic of the Ghana FA claiming the federation is corrupt but appears to have nailed his own coffin by admitting to the scandalous allegations.

He confessed he paid the backhanders to match officials during his side’s stint in the Premier League.

He told Accra-based Happy FM on Wednesday:  “I paid bribes to referees on countless occasions during our time time in the Premier League,” he shamelessly revealed.

“No football administrator in Ghana can run away from this fact. I used to pay fat bribes to referees but I’ve stopped now because I didn’t benefit from it. I once paid 10,000.

“What’s pissed me off is you’ll pay the bribe and the referee’s will still go ahead and rob you, which means he has collected bribe from your opponents as well, so at the end of the day it’s them [referees] who benefit,” Gedo deduced.

GHANAsoccernet.com revealed last year that several referees are in the pockets of many club owners yet turn anticlockwise to accuse the FA of festering the shameful act.

Some of these crooked football officials have consistently battered and bruised the image of the Ghana FA while been the major architects in the damning and disgraceful acts.

The action of football characters like the Amidaus Professionals President has caused the FA’s brand, reputation and business relationships.

The Ghana Premier League is suffocating under financial stress largely due to perceived corruption with the FA targeted as the major culprits.

But it’s emerging some crook characters who are masquerading as club owners are rather instrumental in stifling the growth of the game in the West African nation.

Amidaus Professionals were plunged from the Ghana top-flight after the 2013/2014 season and have failed to chart their way back- maybe he has run out of funds.

The cancerous nature of club officials bribing Ghanaian referees brought global disgrace to Ghana when Ghanaian referee, Joseph Lamptey took his act to the international stage.

Lamptey had a life ban slammed on him by FIFA after he was fingered for influencing the World Cup qualification match between South Africa and Senegal in November 2016.

Lamptey awarded a bogus penalty kick to the South Africans even as video replays showed that the Senegal defender did not handle the ball in their box.
The Ghanaian referee, who handled the match in Polokwane, received a lifetime ban from Fifa for match manipulation.

He challenged the decision in the Swiss courts but it was rejected by the Court for Arbitration of Sports (CAS).