A sports business consultant, Mr Magnus RexDanquah, has backed the call by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the country’s sports authorities to find sustainable funding for sports because the government’s budgetary allocation is unable to meet the huge financial requirements to develop and promote sports in Ghana.
However, he says such a funding model must be independently managed and self-sustaining with the right accountability structures to win the confidence of the public and the corporate world which would be major financiers.
During a meeting recently with the leadership of the Ghana Olympic Committee at the Jubilee house in Accra, the President charged the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Mustapha Ussif, and the leadership of the Olympic movement to fashion out a model to finance sports on a sustainable basis.
The President had earlier held two separate breakfast meetings with corporate executives to help raise $15 million to support the black Stars’ AFCON and FIFA World Cup campaigns next year because the government could only finance $10 million of the estimated $25 million budget for the two competitions
For Mr RexDanquah, who has consulted for the ministry under different administrations, a financing model fashioned around the National Sports Fund, which was initiated by the former Youth and sports Minister, Isaac Kwame Asiamah, is the way to go.
“I see the President’s call for sustainable funding for sports as one in the right direction but those breakfast meetings with corporate executives to raise funds just for the Black Stars are not a long-term solution to the problem we face.
We’ve tried many interventions for sports funding like the Sports Endowment Fund launched in 1994 at the Continental Hotel (now Golden Tulip Hotel) but its management collapsed. If we really want to succeed, then it should be an independent structure,” he told the Graphic Sports.
Mr RexDanquah, who was the architect of Ghana’s bid for the 2023 African Games, recalled the agreement reached at a seminar in Accra in 2019 to discuss the draft National Sports Fund, that such a fund must be structured along the lines of the GETFund, after a lawyer from the Attorney General’s Department suggested the ministry could adopt either the Road Fund or the GETFund models to establish the Sports Fund.
“The consensus at that meeting was that we should have a similar structure like the GETFund which has its own offices, board, and therefore, amendable to how the money can be raised, how it must be managed, and why it is only a certain percentage that is always sent out.
“Again, if you have an office for the Sports Fund as against the Road Fund which is under the ministry, then the temptation is that when the ministry runs out of money it can easily go there for money. But if it’s like the GETFund, nobody other than the managers of the fund can have access it.”
As the lead consultant for the draft National Sports Fund, Mr RexDanquah said he was aware that Cabinet offered a seed money of GH¢5 million but other key processes necessary for setting up such a financing vehicle was not pursued by the ministry.
He, therefore, wants the current minister to take up the challenge to ensure that the process was carried through to the end in fulfilment of the President’s demand.
“I am aware further work was to be done regarding the format or structure of the Fund for Cabinet to forward it to Parliament to be passed into a Legislative Instrument that establishes it. I know nothing has been done so far to get this structure completed.”
The consultant said that the failure of the ministry to find sustainable funding model for sports over the last three decades was due to unwillingness of successive sports ministries to let go of its control, which has led to the stalling of different moves to design a sustainable funding for sports.
“From what I’ve see it’s the reluctance of sports ministers to let go of control over the process. Most of the time, incumbent ministers want the ministry to control the fund but corporate bodies often shy away from such systems because of their perception of government structures.
“I recall many years ago during the Jerry Rawlings administration when Mr Ato Ahwoi had a certain managerial control of the then Internal Revenue Authority, he tried to establish an office at the sports ministry to coordinate the granting of reliefs to corporate bodies that sponsor sports to make it easy for corporate bodies to give to sports because there would be a mechanism in place to grant them tax reliefs. That system was abused.
“Definitely, we need a sustainable vehicle for funding of sports but unfortunately the format of a series of breakfast meeting with corporate bodies is not the appropriate way for us to go because it’s not sustainable. And if you recall, there was a similar approach to the last AFCON in Egypt and when we came back there was a whole hullabaloo over accountability and corporate bodies will always shy away from something with a cloud of uncertainty about transparency and accountability.
“If you have an independent system being managed by a board of trustees or people we all have confidence in, it is easy to raise the money.”
Then also, we should have the products that you want the people to by buy-in because if you have a Fund that is clear as to the direction of Ghana sports, not only football, but sports from school and colleges level to tertiary education sports, and then to the national level, where people see themselves as sponsors, and the same systems give the tax incentives, this is easy.
