The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has enrolled five hundred people within the elite Women's Premier league into their programme for the next half a year, the Ghana Football Association (GFA), has announced.

The five hundred people are players from the 16 Women's League Clubs and twenty others within the same competition.

Each player is expected to receive GHS 500 for the next six months.

The Ghana FA has been deliberating with government to support their members with a package due to the economic hardships caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

Deputy Sports Minister, Perry Okudzeto had announced that sports, for that matter football was not factored when government set aside one billion Ghana Cedis stimulus package for Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs) early this year.

This caused fear within the sports fraternity, accusing the Ministry of doing little to aid the development of athletes and sports in general in the conntry.

However, at a meet the press early last month, Sports Minister, Isaac Asiamah revealed there was plan to alleviate the challenges faced by sports federations with a stimulus package known as 'Youth in Elite Sports For Ghana'.

He said '…the pandemic has caused immeasurable damage to Ghanaian athletes with untold economic hardships' and promised that, 'as a way to mitigate their plight, a collaboration between the YEA' and the mother bodies of federations for the institution of a stimulus package known as 'Youth in Elite Sports for Ghana'.

'The programme is to provide the needed mitigation stimulus to abate the economic impact on athletes,' he said.

Last week, Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC), President Ben Nunoo Mensah revealed thousand athletes have been absorbed into the YEA programme to be supported financially. 

It appears Women's football leads the way in terms of benefiting from the package.

Representative of women’s football on the GFA Executive Council, Madam Habiba Atta Forson, expressed gratitude for the initiative.

“It is such a piece of exciting news for women’s football," She's quoted by the Ghana FA website.

"The initiative from YEA has been given to the women by the Executive Council," the Fabulous Ladies owner revealed.

The decision of the Ghana FA to hand the YEA package to the women teams is an incentive to promote the game in the country.

Despite the lack of patronage for their matches, they continue to invest in the sector.

"This intervention will benefit our women a lot," she noted before explaining that "You know, in women’s football we don’t have paying spectators and so there is no money. This is going to help the players and the clubs a lot.

"…this time around, we are going to give some kind of employment packages to our women."

The players and other people captured to benefit from the package will be paid effective this month, July 2020.

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