Sports betting should be prohibited in the Ghana Premier League, according to the Ghana Football Association (GFA).
Match-fixing, in the opinion of Bechem United President Kingsley Owusu Achau, will be eliminated as a result of this action.
At this time, bettors can still place wagers on a few betting websites for matches in the Ghanaian top flight.
The league, however, has recently been the target of claims of match tampering, which some have connected to sports betting.
Suspicions were raised following a high-scoring match between Ashanti Gold and Inter Allies in the Ghana Premier League on matchday 34 of the 2020–21 season.
Both teams were later demoted to the Division Two League after the GFA’s Disciplinary Committee found them both guilty of match tampering.
Owusu Achau has urged the GFA to follow Sudan’s lead and forbid bookmakers from posting games from Ghana’s top division on their websites.
“We have not been able to stamp it out so I made a proposal to the effect that even the FA could ban it so that no one can use our product as it is done in Sudan and some other places where you cannot use their league for betting,” he told the Graphic Sport.
“It is our product so we have the right to say that if you are caught using our product for betting you’ll be sued for several millions of dollars. This is not the first of its kind, it is done in Sudan and some other countries.”
This comes after Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the majority leader in the legislature, asked for sports betting to be regulated in order to save Ghana football.
He asserts that betting is ruining sports and that things will only become worse until a concerted effort is made to address the problem.
