Ghana Football Association president Kwesi Nyantekyie says criticism about the association’s payment of ex-gratia to members of its executive committee amounts to ‘crying more than the bereaved’.

The GFA doled out more than $350,000 to twenty members of it’s executive committee and other staff as honorarium at a time when it has not paid referees for eight months and claims to be having financial difficulties.

But the GFA is unmoved by such criticisms and is adamant they have the right to use their internally generated funds for the purposes that the association deems fit.

That money is not the money of the government of Ghana, it’s not public funds and it is not FIFA money, he said at the end of the GFA Congress at the Ghanaman School of Excellence. “It is our own money and that money is like you your own money nobody can tell you how to spend your money.”

“The GFA is a company limited by guarantee and we decide to spend our money and there is a hue and cry. Why are you crying more than the bereaved? don’t get the point and I also think that even without paying the ex gratia or making the ex gratia payment you cannot pay all the bills. The fact that you owe referees doesn’t mean you don’t have to eat when you are hungry.

"I remember the president of this country said that okafoo so didi, the fact that you owe somebody doesn’t mean that you don’t eat and so that conception must also be cleared.”