Ghana Premier League side Dreams Football Club have condemned Accra Lions' public cry for reforms to be made to football in Ghana.

Lions on Monday, January 6, issued a statement on their social media pages describing the current situation of Ghana football as a crossroad.

Last season's league runners-up also called for urgent reforms to ensure the reflection of professionalism, transparency, and sportsmanship in the domestic game.

Lions also expressed worry over the absence of a sponsor for the league and the lack of a television rights deal, which they believe is undermining the league's credibility and appeal.

Their concerns followed their league game against Dreams FC on matchday 16 of Ghana's top flight where they suffered a 1-0 defeat to the Beleivers playing with 10 men.

Dreams, however, have chosen to respond to the concerns raised by their rivals.

In their response, the now Tuba-based club questioned Lions' calls for reforms claiming the latter have been beneficiaries of refereeing decisions in the past.

"Dreams Football Club has taken notice of publications made by Accra Lions FC following the Ghana Premier League Week 16 fixture played on Sunday January 5, 2025 at the Tuba AstroTurf Park," the statement read.

"While we generally agree to upholding the tenets of integrity, professionalism, fair play and holding authorities accountable, it is equally important we do so while staying true to these principles, employing the right and appropriate channels and eschewing any forms of hypocrisy and double standards.

"Our fellow Premier League club touted their credentials as being runner's up last season of the very product they seek to subtly bastardize and undermine in their publication. We're very sure [per their suggestions] this feat was achieved by securing results in matches without any refereeing issues.

"Football clubs all over the world have and will continue to benefit and suffer from refereeing infractions in matches. It is our responsibility as industry players to recognize this fact due to the human nature associated with officiating. In fact, these infractions remain prevalent in jurisdictions that have invested heavily to employ the use of modern technology in their game.

"Officials who have been found not to have discharged their duties professionally have been handed various forms of punishment.

"We therefore encourage all stakeholders with compelling evidence of wrongdoing particularly relative to officiating to use the right channels to seek redress.

"It is critical for the responsible authorities to also continue to invest in the training and capacity building of our officials to make them more efficient and to minimize the incidence of poor decisions in matches.

"It is also very true that while we continue to improve on all facets of our games, clubs may continue to be either beneficiaries or casualties of decisions of match officials considered to be poor as pointed out by many in Accra Lions' previous league match against Hearts of Oak.

"It is therefore very strange, that our fellow GPL club did not find the strength to publicly acknowledge the benefits and/or the damaging effects of refereeing decisions then.

"We are unaware of any formal complaints lodged against officials in last Sunday's game and not a single incident of poor refereeing has thus far been referenced - further exposing the very questionable motives of our fellow GPL club.

"This situation coupled by the conduct of officials of Accra Lions [where some notable officials physically attacked the match officials] during the said match amongst others leads us to a worrying observation of how Dreams FC have become an 'easy target for some opposition clubs primarily due to our association with the President of the Ghana Football Association.

"The accompanying commentary pre, during and post this particular match from Accra Lions - as could be seen on their several social media platforms - was clearly calculated to poison the mindset of all stakeholders."

According to Dreams FC, Accra Lions' public outcry is also a way of undermining the efforts of the CAF Confederation Cup semifinalist.

"This act of tainting and discrediting the immense efforts of a club that returned Ghanaian club football back into the global spotlight by progressing to the semi-finals of the CAF Confederation Cup barely a year ago is highly disingenuous and must be rejected outrightly by well-meaning stakeholders," the statement continued.

"The match in question as far as Dreams FC is concerned was played in a highly competitive spirit underpinned by true sportsmanship. In fact, the narrow win did not justify our superiority over our opponents due to our high profligacy rate as accurately captured by the statistics of the numerous available football platforms.

"It therefore behoves on each and every one of us, especially we the clubs, to conduct ourselves in a manner that looks to inspire confidence in the very product that we seek to leverage on to secure the desired sponsorship and investments for our mutual benefit rather than dabble in self-seeking and jaundiced-eye approaches for personal myopic gains.

"Dreams FC hereby rejects any attempts to be used as conduit by any individual or group to perpetuate their own agenda to achieve self-seeking objectives and we encourage all to see through such plots and reject same."

Prior to beating Lions, Dreams FC had failed to win any of their last four games and occupied the 17th position on the league table after 16 games.