Welbeck Abra-Appiah unmoved by planned expansion
PLB boss unmoved by planned expansion
Posted: 2010-07-28 11:28
The Chairman of the Professional League Board Welbeck Abra-Appiah has confirmed there are plans to expand the Ghana Premier League from 16 teams to 20 teams but says any hasty decisions could affect the quality of the league.
The next Ghana season is set to commence in the first week of September but the Ghana Football Association will meet for an extra-ordinary congress on August 18th 2010 with an expansion to twenty teams high on the agenda.
A frustrated Abra-Appiah told Peace FM that the fixtures for the season and all other major plans are ready but says he simply cannot release them because of the impending congress and the plans for the expansion.
"I am through with the fixtures of the league but if I released it now I would be accused of trying to sabotage the 20-team agenda so I am holding on. If congress decides to go with that, a lot of things will change, we will have to re-do the fixtures, up the number of referees which we had intended to cut down and do a lot of things all over again," he said.
Abra-Appiah is clearly not a fan of the planned expansion at least for this season. "When you want to do these things, you plan for them, you plan ahead for it. You say maybe next season this is what we want to do and work towards it. It will disrupt too many things."
The addition of the teams appears to be unpopular also with J.Y Appiah a member of the executive committee of the Ghana Football Association. "It is a waste of our time, he blasted. "Where were those proposing the deal when we went to congress to declare relegated teams amongst others?"
The timing of the expansion is curious. Organisers of the league have struggled to do a decent job of the 16-club league with shambolic fixtures, unreliable television schedules and haphazard planning. The fear is a 20-club league will magnify those problems.
: 2010-07-31 11:48
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