The government of Ghana has agreed for FIFA to set up a normalization committee to run Ghana football in the interim and we look at the main job of such committee.

The GFA has been without a leader following the resignation of its President Kwesi Nyantakyi last June and the earlier sacking of its vice president George Afriyie.

Many other national associations have seen such committees imposed in their countries by the global soccer body with Cameroon and Mali as the recent examples in Africa.

On Thursday a government delegation led by the Minister for Youth and Sports Isaac Asiamah and comprising the Deputy Chief of Staff Samuel Abu Jinapor, the Minister for Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Deputy- Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame and the head of the FIFA/CAF liaison team Kofi Amoah met with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, the FIFA General Secretary Fatma Samoura and other FIFA representatives in Zurich.

The meeting was arranged for government to make its intentions clearer after FIFA issued an ultimatum to suspend the GFA should government fails to withdraw a court case against the GFA – which according to FIFA constituted external interference.

One key outcome of the meeting is that FIFA shall consult both government of Ghana and CAF to establish a normalization committee to replace the existing Executive Committee of the GFA and so what does such a committee do?

The FIFA normalisation committee is appointed in accordance with Article 8 of the FIFA Statutes and it reads : “Executive bodies of member associations may under exceptional circumstances be removed from of? ce by the Council in consultation with the relevant confederation and replaced by a normalisation committee for a speci? c period of time.”

The normalization committee is normally charged with:

1.Running the daily affairs of the football association

2.Drafting new statutes that fulfill the requirements of FIFA statutes as well as the national law

3.Review the statutes of regional federations and the domestic league competition to ensure their alignment

4.Identifying the representative bodies to form the Congress, as well as in regional federations, and
conducting elections to form a new Board / Executive committee.

5.In the case of the Ghana the normalization committee will decide whether to continue or discontinue the current domestic season in which the first half has been completed. Though a continuation is unlikely it is still the committee that will decide on the Ghana Premier League, the Division One League, the Women’s League, the MTN FA Cup, the Sanford Women FA Cup.

6.The committee will decide on the participation or non-participation of Ghanaian clubs in the 2019 CAF club competitions namely the CAF Champions league and the CAF Confederation Cup. If the normalization committee decides against a continuation of the current season but decides for Ghanaian clubs to participate in the 2019 CAF competitions then the committee will draw up the criteria to select the country’s representatives.