Ghana ex-football chief charged

ACCRA. — The former head of Ghanaian football Kwesi Nyantakyi was on Wednesday charged with fraud at a high court in Accra, after a landmark undercover investigation which exposed widespread graft in African football.

An undercover documentary by journalist Anas Aremeyaw in 2018 sent shock waves through the game in the West African nation, after showing Nyantkakyi allegedly soliciting kickbacks worth millions of dollars and accusing several footballing officials of corruption.

The former head administrator was also shown allegedly receiving a US$65 000 financial inducement.

Appearing in court Nyantakyi plead not-guilty to the charges.

State prosecutors said he was “caught in the documentary executing plans to sign a Memorandum of Understanding” on behalf of a fictitious company.

At the high court trial Nyantakyi was released on bail for US$186 000 with the trial set to continue on March 25.

The undercover investigation in 2018 sparked a major shake-up of Ghanaian football with several of the country’s referees banned for life and football officials in a number of other African countries sanctioned.

In October that year Nyantakyi was given a life-time ban from all football-related activities by the sport’s world governing body FIFA after being found guilty of bribery and corruption.

Meanwhile, former Uefa head Michel Platini has lost his appeal at the European Court of Human Rights against a four-year ban from football over a US$2 million payment from then FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2011.

A chamber of seven judges at the Strasbourg-based court ruled yesterday that Platini’s “suspension from football-related professional activity was justified”.

“The court found in particular that, having regard to the seriousness of the misconduct, the senior position held by Mr Platini in football’s governing bodies and the need to restore the reputation of the sport and of FIFA, the sanction did not appear excessive or arbitrary,” it said.

Platini’s application, the court ruled, was “inadmissible”.

FIFA banned Platini, its then vice president, in 2015 over the payment he received, sparking years of bitter recriminations from the now 64-year-old Frenchman and a falling out with his former ally Blatter. — AFP.