Ghana Football Association (GFA) has described claims by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) for unfair treatment in awarding Ghana Premier League (GPL) broadcasting rights as “deliberate misinformation”.
According to the GFA, the granting of GPL television broadcast rights to Star times was procedurally done with bids being thoroughly evaluated in compliance with deadline issued.
They noted that, the. GFA issued a statement inviting bids from media organizations for its competitions. The statement issued clearly indicated deadline for submission – 5pm on Tuesday December, 10, 2019.
The GFA mentioned that, aside the two first bids from GBC not meeting the valuation, the other two bids were submitted after the stipulated deadlines.
“The GFA Bid Evaluation Team had a meeting with GBC and informed them that none of the two bids they submitted met the valuation of the GFA. At that same meeting, GBC was told they were 3rd in the GFA’s valuation.”
“On January 2, 2019, GBC emailed a 3rd and 4th bids (note that these were long after the deadline of the bidding period which ended at 5 p.m. on December 10, 2019).
“The 4th bid (out of time) was for an exclusive television and digital rights for Ghana and Global for 4 years for GH 25,080,000 (GH 6,270,000 per season) for Ghana Premier League and FA Cup with a condition to have a share of Title Sponsorship if the GFA secured one (30% share for GBC).”
The GFA explained that “evaluation of bids is not only about the financials but includes all conditions, such as those GBC stated in their proposal, such as the 30% share GBC wanted on all Title Sponsorships.”
They added that “if only financials alone were considered, the 4th bid of GBC (which was out of time) was not the bid with the highest financial consideration. Two other proposals were higher than the GBC bids but other conditions (due diligence) affected those bids.”
GFA urged Ghanaians to dismiss earlier reports alleging “unfairness”. They assured their members and all stakeholders that the evaluation conducted on the bid was very thorough and was strictly in compliance with the deadline issued to the Ghanaian public and the world at large.
Source: Jonas Danquah ||ghananewsonline.com.gh
