General Manager, sustainability, at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Dr Kwame Baah-Nuakoh says the amount of money sports federations can access depends on the size of a country’s economy.

Corporate Ghana is a major source of funding for most of Ghana’s sports federations because government's sports budget has proven to be inadequate, however, the amount of money accessed over the years is expected to dwindle as a result of Covid-19, which has affected the revenue of most companies.

The former Asante Kotoko management member said the country lacks huge business organisations which adequately supports sports as witnessed in South Africa whose topflight league is sponsored by Absa. 

“The ability to engage the corporate world depends on the size of your economy. We don’t have big sized companies like which sponsors football in South Africa or the big breweries which sponsor the country’s top athletes”

Dr. Baah-Nuakoh added that the advertising budgets of most Ghanaian companies, from which support is often drawn for sports are comparatively smaller.

“Ask yourself which Ghanaian company has an advertising budget close to $10 million annually? Any money they pay in sponsorship is based on the size of their advertising budget. We don’t have companies of that size”.

The former sports journalist said until a conscious effort is made to grow Ghanaian business organisations, sports federations cannot access the sort of funding available to other countries.

“If we don’t grow our industries, if we don’t grow big organizations in Ghana, it is near impossible for any sporting federation to attract the amount of sponsorship money that will allow the compete effectively.”