The President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) has expressed disappointment over the poor performance of certain Ghanaian referees in the FA’s theory tests.
Kurt Okraku revealed that some referees, despite being experienced officials in the Ghana Premier League, scored as low as 3.5% in the assessment.
He made these remarks during his speech at the Association’s 30th Ordinary Congress in Prampram on Tuesday, August 27.
“It is sad to note that results from the theory test conducted by the GFA on refereeing have been extremely poor. Think about it: if we do not know the laws of the game and they are not at our fingertips, how do we implement or interpret the laws of the game?” Okraku fumed.
“I have charged the referees manager and the Referees Association of Ghana to be up to date on this identified problem. Knowledge levels on the laws of the game are too poor, and it’s not something we have to accept because it’s not okay,”
“When referees who have officiated in the GPL get as low as 20%, some getting as low as 3.5%, then you should know and understand that we have a problem.”
In related events, while addressing the media in Sunyani some weeks ago, Kurt Okraku said the GFA is aiming to improve refereeing in the country and would, therefore, be rolling out some strategies.
He noted that the implementation of the VAR technology was likely to begin in the Ghana Premier League before being implemented in other competitions.
“We are going to introduce VAR into our football. Whatever we will do to introduce VAR into football, we will, as part of our overall strategy for improving refereeing starting from our GPL, we will. It’s coming,” Okraku said.
VAR was used in Ghana for the first time during the 2022 FIFA World Cup playoff first-leg game between the Black Stars and Nigeria in Kumasi.
