Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) Mr Yofi Grant has urged Ghanaian football clubs to put the right structures in place to able to attract corporate investors.
The multifaceted administrator schooled the Ghanaian clubs to streamline their administrations to entice corporate institutions.
He said, “Our football administrators probably need to pick up the pace a bit, because like I said infrastructure is important, the micro economy is important, the infrastructure is not just the stadia, the infrastructure relates to the legal regime affecting footballers, the protection they get, the insurance, the financials, the sponsorship, there is merchandise all those put together form the infrastructure of the sports”.
Adding to the organizational framework, Grant called for a thorough rebuilding process at the club level.
“Clubs have to market their brands. There is no shop in Accra I can walk to buy Kotoko or Hearts T-shirt. But I bet you I can buy Arsenal, Manchester United, Man City Chelsea etc in Ghana. So these are all the opportunities Merchandise. Sports is big, our corporates will rather go and put money in Miss Ghana, because they see that a lot of people will watch it. But more people will watch sports in this country than any other thing.So sports itself is a commodity that can be well package, well marketed and it is an investment opportunity. I think that the structure gives some tax relief to sports investment and the cooperations, but the marketing hasn’t been done well”.
He concluded by lamenting the no sponsor syndrome in the GPL despite the recent change on the Ghanaian terrain.
“I am very sad we couldn’t get a headline sponsor for the League. And I guess the headline sponsors never saw the returns”.
