The National Sports Authority (NSC) has warned that sports federations which fails to assume national appeal, nature and character risk a revocation of their licence.
The Deputy Director-General of the authority in-charge of Technical, Saka Acquaye said the laws establishing the federations enjoins them to have regional and district associations, a strategy to promote the interests, rights and social cohesion of Ghanaians.
He gave the warning on Tuesday when he inaugurated two new federations; the Ghana Armwrestling Federation (GAF) and the Ghana Mixed Marshall Arts Federation (GMMAF).
Armwrestling involves two participants, each places one arm on a surface with their elbows bent and touching the surface, and they grip each other’s hand. The goal is to pin the other’s arm onto the surface, with the winner’s arm over the loser’s arm. It is a traditional recreation in most African communities but interest in it as a professional sport started early this year when the Ghana Armwrestling Federation was formed to spearhead the promotion of the game.
Two championships have since been held in Accra and Kumasi.
The Armwrestling Federation is headed by Mr Charles Osei Asibey, a seasoned Senior Broadcast Journalist, an events person and head of EMG Multimedia (Radio 360).
The Ghana Armwrestling Federation is the 40th sporting federation inaugurated and legally known to the National Sports Authority.
Mr Acqquaye said due to dwindling financing, the authority has been unable to support the federations as it desires, a situation that has made many of the sporting disciplines apart from football lesser known sports.
“When Ghana didn’t have oil, Youth and Sports Ministry was given about GH 54million cedis in annual budgets but now that we have oil, we get something around GH22million cedis out of which GHC12 million cedis is for salaries and emoluments alone”, he lamented.
He however urged the youth to take to sporting activities because of their numerous benefits such as scholarships, easy employment and increase in life expectancy.
He presented licences to the leadership of the two federations.
A deputy Director of the authority who chaired the event, Joshua Mensah congratulated the two new federations and stressed the need for them to decentralise their activities.
Speaking on behalf of the two federations, Mr Osei Asibey thanked the government through the National Sports Authority for the recognition and asked corporate Ghana to help in the promotion of the two new sports.
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