Ghana wanted a televised league. Now Ghana can’t watch.

Well, at least parts of Ghana. The national league became what it is today in 1956, when it was formed. Since then it has been a long journey of ups and downs – but mostly ups.

The league has been called several names, but now it is the:

That’s right. And television leverage has been one of its biggest problems.

Earlier in the week, Ghana’s information minister was roughed up a bit by the Minority in Parliament who claimed she provided unsatisfactory answers to questions on the floor of the House.
The Glo Premier League was top of the agenda as Zita Okaikoi was in the House to answer questions relating to her ministry.

Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, MP for Takoradi, had tabled a question before the House on when Ghanaians across the nation will be able to watch the GPL live on Ghana Television, the state run broadcaster.

At the moment, the station is the only one that has nationwide coverage.

According to Joy FM, the minister had told the House the state broadcaster intended to telecast “all 36 league matches” of the Glo Premier League currently in its final stages, however it failed, along with other stations, to win the bid for the rights.

Optimum Media Prime – Talal Fattal’s baby – currently has the rights and until it expires, not much can be done.

The minority pounced on the answer, arguing that the minister had misinformed the House because the matches in the league are far in excess of the 36 she quoted.

Indeed the Ghanaian League is a 16-club league in which each club plays the others in a two-tie, home-and-away basis. That makes a total of 480 matches.

Away from the drama in Parliament, Metro TV (through which OMP shows the games) shows at least one live game every week. They also record 4 matches within the same period and try to show delayed telecasts later.

This means that only few of the usual 8 matches played at a time are shown at a go. Even on days that fewer than eight games are played across the country, the network is unable to show more than one live game at a time.

And even with the games that are shown, there have been complaints about the mode of match selections. Someone noted the other day that Sporting Mirren – who did well to languish at the bottom of the league nearly the whole season – matches receive a goodly amount of airtime to the detriment of more ‘exciting teams’ in the middle of the GPL league table.

I sit back and say, Mirren is Mr. Fattal’s team, no? And the station that shows the GPL is his as well, no?

There you are!

Anyway, the result of this one-live-game-at-a-time thing is that there are several great games in the GPL that have been missed by the populace except those who could trek to the stadia.

Sadly, that number is not much, anyway. My people tell me that on a good day, Accra’s Ohene Djan stadium sees a capacity crowd of – wait for it – seventy (70).

Despite this decidedely gloomy picture I’ve been painting, we must admit that the GPL coverage on Metro TV is the best Ghana can get at the moment, because GTV simply cannot afford that extra cost.

Private ownership of the coverage is all we have and we have to make do with it. However, and I say this with misgivings, GTV and Metro TV could come to a certain agreement.

They could agree that to make the matches more accessible to the general public and for the good of the game, the two entities could split the rights in the following way:

Metro TV and GTV would each take 4 games every week to show. These four games would be evenly distributed such that no one station gets the ‘juicier’ games.

That, I believe, can easily be arranged.