Kwesi Nyantakyi has gained the top billing in the archives of former chairman of the Ghana League Clubs Association (GHALCA), Alhaji Raji, as the greatest president in the history of the Ghana Football Association (GFA).
Nyantakyi was the fifteenth president of GFA, serving from 2005 to 2018. During his tenure, he was recognized for strengthening football development activities.
Remarkably, under his presidency, Ghana qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the first for the country. Ghana again qualified for the subsequent 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. The Ghana U-20 football team also won Africa's first and only U-20 World Cup also during his stewardship in 2009.
Speaking on Asempa FM, Alhaji Raji lauded Nyantakyi’s achievements.
“Kwesi Nyantakyi is the best GFA president to have ever emerged from the country,” he said.
“He achieved a lot of things when he was in office. His only challenge was the other stuff that we all know, but for me, he remains the best-ever GFA president,” he added.
However, Nyantakyi’s tenure came to an abrupt end, as he tended-in his resignation on June 8, 2018, as the president of the GFA after being accused of corrupt practices following an investigative documentary by journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas.
The unfortunate incident was reported after an executive committee meeting of the GFA. The resignation is believed to have resulted from a provisional ban placed on Nyantakyi for a period of 90 days by the chairperson of the adjudicatory chamber of the Ethics Committee of FIFA.
Following his departure, the GFA was placed under interim management by a Normalisation Committee before Kurt Okraku took charge in 2019.
By: Pascal Amoah
