The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GB) has expressed disappointment at the Ghana Football Association (GFA)’s decision to award the league and FA Cup television (TV) rights to StarTimes at their expense.
The GFA on Wednesday declared Chinese pay television company as official TV rights holders for the two competitions. According to the FA, StarTimes paid US$5.25 million to secure a five-year deal.
But in a statement released on Thursday, Director of Corporate Affairs, Mamle Asare revealed that they offered the GFA more money to cover the two competitions compared to StarTimes.
According to them, they made a bid of US$1,100,000 annually which was more than the US$1,050,000 annual offer by the StarTimes to secure the rights and that GFA’s claim that StarTimes had won the rights with the best bid came as a shock and disappointment.
“Apart from GBC’s superior financial offer, we thought that the Premier League and FA Cup content would have been treated like a national treasure and given to the national broadcaster and a consortium of local broadcasters,” the release stated.
The national broadcaster also said it had been treated unfairly adding that “The GFA’s decision will gravely impact on Ghanaians’ access to the Ghana Premier League and FA Cup live games on Free-to-Air (FTA) broadcast.
“When Ghana football sunk to its lowest ebb in the aftermath of the ‘Number 12’ exposé, it was GBC that invested huge human and material resources to work with the Normalisation Committee to bring the special competitions to the homes of Ghanaians live.
“GBC did this at the time nobody cared about showing the game on TV because it was unattractive,” it stated.
Below is the full statement.
StarTimes are expected to cover the third week of Ghana Premier League games this weekend.
