From the posturing of the Ghana Football Association, it is clear that a big sacrifice is still being made to get it right with headline sponsorship for the Ghana Premier League whose new season is one match day old.

Ahead of the start of the season, there was big hope that the top flight would land a headline sponsor to ease some of the financial needs of putting together the competition. In some previous on Multimedia platforms, General Secretary of the Ghana FA, Prosper Harrison Addo ahead of the start of the 2020 season gave an assurance that his outfit was close to landing a good deal. This was specifically on the Joy Sports Link on Joy 99.7fm.

Away from this as well, the GFA’s Director of Marketing Jamil Maraby, whose sole responsibility has has been to pitch the FA's football products to the potential sponsors, highlighted the fact that his outfit was looking for sponsors with a muscle of a minimum of 3 million USD for each season.

On the August 14, 2021 edition of the Joy Sports Link on Joy FM, Jamil Maraby indicated that his outfit was still in advanced negotiations to fill that void of the headliner. More importantly he also stated that his outfit was not backing down on placing a cap on that category of sponsorship for the Ghana Premier League.

“It would be easier for us to land a partnership with brands that want to pay amounts like $300,000 per season but that’s not what our target is. Those amounts can fit into respective categories but not the main one. Its costs quite a lot to organize the league and clubs also spend a lot in participating. The minimum we can accept will be 18 million Ghana cedis ($3 million)”

According to Mr Maraby his outfit wants to ensure that every measure taken in the interest of the game will also strengthen the brand and not devalue it.

STC deal will not be affected

In the Daily Graphic’s web site on October 28 published a story with the headline STC faces financial crisis; loses GHC50m to covid-19. This immediately drew attention to their existing deal with the FA which is about $50,000 (GHC3 million) per season.

Indications are that the deal will not be affected even though the company is in clear crisis.

This scenario brings reminisce of the Capital Bank (now defunct) sponsorship of the Ghana Premier League which was 2 million dollars per season for five seasons. This was secured during Kwasi Nyantalyi’s term as FA President. The deal had to be suspended after an external consultant’s audit. The Bank was a tier three classified bank and could not sustain that quantum of sponsorship according to the consultant.

Existing deals

The Ghana FA currently has some deals with some brands which are still active. Key amongst them is Chinese Broadcast partners, Stars Times who have three more years remaining on their deal worth $1 million per season.

Some brands and companies all are putting in around $50,000 each in products and services for this season. They are textile giants Woodin, Melcom Shopping Center, Nasco electronic appliances and STC (State Transport Company). Also Tempo is the new official ball partner, replacing Macron. ZAZ is the Referee kit manufacturing company that is also handling referee apparels worth $50,000 for the season.

Club efforts

Ghana Premier League clubs are generally operating the new season with existing deals. It is however important to note the Chirano Mines sponsorship for Premier League debutants Bibiani Gold Stars which was a 33-seater Kia Grand Bird. While both sponsor and club are not disclosing the figure, the bus has a market value of around $145, 000.  

Joy Sports will be monitoring the deals with the clubs and will do some analysis in another piece.