The National Sports Authority (NSA) has revealed that the revenue generated from Ghana Premier League games is insufficient to support its duties, despite football being the biggest sport in the country.
According to NSA spokesman Charles Amofa, a single match can yield as little as 700 Ghana cedis, while maintenance costs for stadia, including electricity and water bills, can reach up to 80,000 cedis monthly.
Amofa emphasized that the NSA cannot solely rely on football revenue, as significant income from high-profile matches like those between Hearts and Kotoko is sporadic. He highlighted that the NSA’s facilities are multifunctional and cater to various sports, including volleyball, handball, and boxing.
“Our facilities are multifunctional facilities that is we don’t only use it for football there are other disciplines volleyball, handball, boxing, etc they all use the facility. Because of our mandate to develop sports in Ghana we can’t pass cost of using the facility to the sportsmen,” Amofa told Peace FM.
He continued: “When a windfall comes for example Hearts and Kotoko it comes once in a while but if you look at the facility we have Accra Sports Stadium, Baba Yara Stadium the cost of maintaining the facility a month’s electricity bill sometimes it is 80,000 cedis, water bill, sanitation.
“After a game it sometimes take us 2 or 3 days to clean the whole place, sometimes when you go to the washroom bulbs have been removed, taps removed all of these are maintenance Sports Authority have to do.”
Amofa’s comments come as Ghanaians have criticized the NSA for poor stadium maintenance. However, he emphasized that the NSA’s facilities are not just used for football matches, and that the authority has a mandate to develop sports in Ghana as a whole.
