Accra, Aug. 27, GNA - Mr Ben Koufie, Chairman of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), has urged the Ghana League Clubs Association (GHALCA) to treasure sponsors and not to ridicule or embarrassed them irrespective of their sponsorship offer.

He said the clubs should instead, learn to praise and lobby the sponsors as the only way to induce them to increase their offer.

Mr Koufie's statement in Accra on Wednesday was in apparent reaction to GHALCA's threat not to allow Crystal TV, a Kumasi-based television station to telecast the Premier League matches live on grounds that the package of 102,000 dollars for this year was a "chicken feed" and has subsequently asked the GFA to return it.

GHALCA is proposing a million-dollar for the next four years; which means Crystal would have pump in 250 million cedis each year. But Mr Koufie told a press conference in Accra where Parlays Biscuit Ghana Limited gave Ghana's juvenile soccer (Colts Football) its first league sponsorship of 150 million cedis that, "If you are poor you accept whatever comes your way".

"Its common sense that you first accept what you are given, before you could ask for more", the GFA Chairman added.

He said the recent protestation by the clubs will send wrong signals to corporate bodies who might be interested in sponsoring not only the league but the national teams as well.

The Chairman said the GFA does not work in isolation but does so in consultation with GHALCA who dominate the GFA.

He said it would be wrong for GHALCA to disassociate itself from what is happening because "the GFA and GHALCA are one Holy Trinity". 27 Aug. 2003.