Pressure mounts on Ghana Athletics Association officials, coaches to resign
Former GAA Chairman, George Haldane Lutterodt
Former chairman of the Ghana Athletics Association (GAA), George Haldane Lutterodt, has called for the resignation of the current GAA executives and the coaching staff following the disqualification of Ghana’s Relay team at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Read full articleAccording to Lutterodt, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Sports Minister, Mustapha Ussif must take full action against leaders of the GAA team.
He noted that the GAA’s apology for failing to inform authorities at the Commonwealth Games about the changes made by Ghana’s Relay Team is not enough.
“Heads must roll indeed; in 1996 when a similar fiasco happened at the Atlanta Olympics due to the incompetence of the GAA officials, the association was disbanded soon after their return. So there is precedence.
“The GAA apology is not worth the paper it’s written on. Actions have consequences and the GAA must do the honourable thing by resigning after making the nation a laughing stock in the world,” Mr Lutterodt told Daily Graphic in an interview.
Ghana’s Relay team were disqualified in the Men’s 4x100 meters for a technical violation at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Despite placing third and qualifying for the Men’s 4x100 meters final, Ghana was disqualified for failing to inform authorities about the swap of athletes.
The GAA later apologized that Ghana’s disqualification was per World Athletics Rule TR 24.11.
“In short, only athletes whose names are on the final confirmation form as starters can run during the competition. Ghana originally submitted its 4X100m final confirmation list of four starters and a reserve about 14 hours before the start of the race on August 5.
“Joseph Amoah, who was originally listed as a starter was subsequently ruled out of participating in the semi-final of the 4x100m on the morning of August 6. However, in what we can only describe as an unfortunate oversight, Joseph’s withdrawal was not transmitted in time to the Technical Information Center (TIC) by our coaching crew as intended before the race,” it said.
“GAA is currently engaging major stakeholders on the matter since there are valuable logistical lessons to be learned from this unfortunate outcome,” the GAA stated.
Mr Lutterodt disclosed that the errors committed by the current GAA cannot be overlooked after reducing the country to a laughing stock.
“Since they took office over a decade ago, it has been one error after another and this has brought the nation too many embarrassments; it is time they go,” he stressed.
JNA/KPE
