Sports News of Saturday, 24 August 2024

Source: starrfm.com.gh

Government should prioritize sports infrastructure development over provision of buses – Paul Anyaba

Vice President of Ghana and Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia Vice President of Ghana and Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia

Paul Anyaba, Business Development Manager for FC Samartex, wants the government to prioritize sports infrastructure development to improve sports in Ghana.

Reacting to Vice Prez Bawumia’s promise of provision of buses to Ghana’s premier league clubs on THE GAME on GHOne TV, Paul Anyaba revealed that most Ghana Premier League teams have bigger issues to contend with and the provision of buses is the least of those concerns.

“I think that the vice president, if elected, will not be under any obligation to give anyone such a gift(bus) so ordinarily when someone out of goodwill is giving you a gift you should be happy especially where we are coming from we are always on the road and when your bus breaks down and you have an alternative one, it’s good news so we will be much happy.

However, we feel that on the needs if you want to rate the things that football clubs need especially the Ghana premier league clubs, bus rates are among the lowest so for me if you look at the capacity of the state and what the state can do, the state should rather be looking at the areas that the investors, those who are investing in football do not have the capacity, I’m talking about infrastructure because this a major problem. For instance, if Essipong was in a good state we would have been playing the CAF Champions League at Essipong and because the Western region is our base getting people to fill the stadium wouldn’t have been difficult like we are facing now in Accra,” he stated.

Paul Anyaba further emphasized that poor pitches hinder the quality of players, but they can improve when playing on advanced pitches in the advanced world.

“For instance, our roads in Samraboi were good by March when it was clear that Samatex was likely to win the premier league we would have made our Nsenkyire sports arena club licensing compliance because we are not so much away if you look at our facility we can do it but because of infrastructure, and the road, we cannot hold certain competitions at our end so we are saying that if the government can look at improving the sports infrastructure and even adding to it and making sure that specifically on the football we have a lot of good pitches so that our players will be comfortable playing on these pitches, you,” he told GHOne TV.

Samartex will look to finish the job in the return leg on August 25 at the Accra Sports Stadium.