Ghana won't face wider CAF bans after Black Starlets disqualification

Published on: 28 November 2014
Ghana won't face wider CAF bans after Black Starlets disqualification
Ghana wont face wqider CAF bans

Ghana won't face wider CAF bans after the decision by Africa's governing body to disqualify the Black Starlets from the Niger 2015 Africa Under-17 Championship because the country was not found guilty of fraud.

The Black Starlets were only disqualified from taking part in next year's tournament because officials of the football federation were not judged to have fraudulently fielded an unqualified player.

CAF’s suspension placed on Ghana was due to the fielding of player Isaac Twum during an Africa Under-17 Championship qualifier against Cameroon who is adjudged to be overage following an MRI test.

As Ghana only relied on the judgement of the an independent radiologist to clear Twum to play in the competition so the GFA can't be blamed for fraudulently fielding a player knowing he is overage or falsified documents to play the player.

CAF regulations state that a country will be banned for two years from all youth competitions that would have affected five national teams of Ghana including the Black Satellites, the Black Meteors and the two female junior national teams.

The CAF Appeal Board ruled that the Ghana FA has breached the provisions of article 40 of the U-17 African Championship which stipulates: “A team which fields a player who does not fulfill the required conditions to take part in a match, shall lose the match and shall be eliminated from the Championship.”

If Ghana breached the provisions of article 39 of the U-17 African Championship which stipulates: "Any team that will commit a fraud on a player’s identity and/or have a suspended player participating, shall lose the match and shall be definitively eliminated from the competition by the organising Committee with immediate effect." then they would have faced the wider bans.

"If we had been guilty of fraud we could have been banned from all youth competitions for two years," Ghana FA boss Nyantakyi who is also a CAF Executive Committee member said.

GFA has said it will not appeal against the decision of Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) to disqualify the Black Starlets from the Niger 2015 Africa Under-17 Championship, which starts in February next year.

GFA had the option to pursue the appeal of the ruling within 10 days at the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS).

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.
Learn more