Before Bechem United’s first home Premier League match against Asante Kotoko, their financial backer Kingsley Owusu Achau promised that the Nana Fosu Gyeabour Park would be ready for usage.
The Premier League champion will play host to the 2022 MTN FA Cup semifinalist this weekend.
The Nana Fosu Gyeabour Park was not approved for use by the Club Licensing Board of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) because it did not adhere to the regulations.
However, Owusu-Achau stated in an interview that the club was virtually finished implementing the board’s recommendations and that they anticipated all outstanding concerns to be remedied prior to their first home game.
He claims that the board simply expressed concern about the iron rods and wooden planks that were left over after some renovation work and did not identify any severe defaults.
“We undertook some renovation works at the media centre and fixed some extra seats, so they only asked us to clear all the iron rods and the wooden planks at the stadium,” he said.
The board ranked the pitch as one of the top three in the nation at the time, according to Mr. Achau, thus the FA could not ban it because they hired Greengrass Technology to work on it during the off-season.
Instead of waiting for clubs to formally file grievances before examining referee performance, he advocated for fair officiating this season and suggested hiring retired referees to review referees’ work every week.
“I am advocating a weekly review of matches so that within 48 hours, issues could be resolved. You don’t have to report before matches are reviewed,” he stated.
At the Accra Sports Stadium on Saturday, Bechem United lost to Great Olympics for the first time this year.