Sports Minister, Mahama Ayariga has denied claims that his ministry sponsored supporters to watch the final match between Ghana and Ivory Coast in Equatorial Guinea last Sunday.

He said his ministry had nothing to do with the system which flew some 500 supporters to cheer the Black Stars.

Speaking on Peace FMs’ Morning Show ‘Kokrokoo’, Mr Ayariga said “the ministry of Youth and Sports did not spend money on any supporter to go to Equatorial Guinea. We did not make any provision for anybody, not one pesewa from the ministry was approved for anybody to go watch the football.”

He said he was only informed about the decision to fly supporters to Equatorial Guinea but is unaware of and does not know what company it was and the processes involved in sponsoring the trip.

According to the Minister, the only role he played was to inform the supporters unions to send their documents to the Equatorial Guinea Embassy for processing.

Mr Ayariga also denied reports that some supporters who were sent to watch the Ghana – Equatorial Guinea match were stranded after the match and had to spend the night at the Ghanaian Embassy and the ambassador’s house.

He explained that the violence that erupted during the game made it impossible for the supporters to return to the airport in time to take the flight back to Ghana.

“With that incident that happened at the stadium, we couldn’t leave the stadium. We were held up in the stadium for about 3 hours so the government there had to use security to clear the whole town before we were able to drive to the airport.

“By the time our fans drove to the airport, the airline said they could not fly again because there are regulations on how many hours the pilot and crew should sleep and because we had delayed at the stadium, those times had been exhausted and the flight crew had to go and rest; so we could not fly that night”, he continued.

The safest place for the supporters in view of the violence that had already occurred was the ambassador’s residence and the embassy, which had been provided with security by the Equato Guinean government, he indicated.

He said the supporters were flown back to Ghana the next morning.

AFCON Budget

Prior to the AFCON tournament, there were several calls on the Sports Minister to release the approved budget before the matches began, but he failed to do so.

Editor-in-chief of the Insight Newspaper Kwesi Pratt, yesterday called on the ministry to render a transparent account of the budget to Ghanaians.

However, Mr Ayariga said “I refuse to discuss the budget but I will put out the report to the Auditor General and Parliament and it will be made known to the public.”

He blamed the media for distracting the ministry from concentrating on its job during the tournament and said that although the distractions had been ignored, they have not relented.

The most appropriate thing to do, in his view was to congratulate the players for the patriotism and hard work they displayed at the tournament.

“Some people have made it their business to try as hard as they can to take attention away from the great effort of the boys and to see to what extent they can use useful airtime to discuss matters that I thought in other places will not be the subject for discussion.”