Ghana’s controversial investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas has released yet another documentary showing African football referees taking cash ahead of international matches to influence the games.
This exclusive documentary was released the same day on Wednesday by BBC’s Africa Eye as the one screened in Ghana’s capital of Accra about corrupt Ghanaian football referees and officials taking bribes.
The two-year undercover investigation indicted match commissioner from The Gambia, Ebrima Jallo, who took $500 from Anas’s men who posed as Ghanaian fans hours ahead of a 2017 West African Football Union (WAFU) tournament match between Ghana and Mali. He denied any wrongdoing when the BBC contacted him.
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Another target of the investigation who was caught on camera was international referee Range Marwa of Kenya who was due to officiate as a linesman at the World Cup in Russia.
Marwa took $600 from Anas’s men posing as Ghanaian football officials in his hotel room during the African Nations Championship last year. Receiving gifts to officiate matches is against FIFA rules.
FIFA told the BBC that Marwa had resigned from refereeing at the World Cup. He also denied any wrongdoing.
The level of corruption was climaxed by the $65,000 taken by the second biggest official in African football and the president of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kwesi Nyantakyi.
Nyantakyi was approached by Anas’s team for a sponsorship deal in the Ghana football league. He promised to offer the deal and make the fictitious company rich in Ghana by creating a company to serve as an agency for the deal that will take a percentage of the funds to share amongst them.
He further offered to secure government contracts to build roads if they can give Ghana’s president Nana Akufo Addo and government officials a total of $12 million. Nyantakyi also charged $1 million for himself and an accomplice and a further $2 million for “processing” of the deal.
He happily received the $65,000 and an additional $2000 for shopping after the meeting with the so-called Emirati investor in a hotel room in Dubai.
#Number12: Let’s hear FA President, Kwesi Nyantakyi’s strategy for ‘taking over the country’ pic.twitter.com/mrSwZ9B8Vk
— CitiNewsroom (@Citi973) June 6, 2018
The Ghana-version of the documentary, titled #Number12, exposed 77 Ghanaian referees and 14 officials of the football association for engaging in corrupt acts.
Ghanaians were outraged after the expose which was screened on Wednesday in Accra.
Anas Aremeyaw Anas started undercover journalism in 1998 and has produced dozens of notable investigative works including Nigeria’s Baby Farmers, Ghana judiciary scandal, Nigeria’s Fake Doctors, Ghana Sex Mafia, The Messiah of Mentukwa, How To Rob Africa, Deadly Gold and Dons Of The Forest among many others.
