The management of Kumasi Asante Kotoko has
called on the Ghana Football Association (GFA) and the Premier
League Board (PLB) and if possible, the World Anti-Doping Agency
(WADA) to ensure that players of Kotoko and Hearts undergo
doping tests in Sunday’s Premier league top liner.
Kumasi Asante Kotoko SC believes that, the exercise will be
the nation’s contribution towards the fight against the use of
banned substances in sporting competitions and the sanitization
of sports.
Administrative Manager of the Club, Mr. Benjamin Nti, who has
made the call argues that much as Kotoko does not have any
direct evidence to buttress their suspicion of doping in our
local game it would not be out of place for the GFA/PLB to take
the issue up.
“It is the aim of Kotoko to have a clean and fair game and so
we urge the football controlling body in Ghana to partner WADA
in its international monitoring, promotion, and coordination of
the international fight against doping in sport in all of its
forms”.
“We therefore are ready to submit our team to a doping test
either before, at recess or after Sunday’s match so that
cheating and unfair advantage would be completely uprooted from
Ghana football,” he emphasized.
He has therefore called on the GFA through the PLB to lead
the way in Africa with this epic clash.
“It must be noted that FIFA has previews Kotoko-Hearts
matches as one of the big games around the world and this
indicates that the world is watching this game with keen
interest. This exercise would therefore be a plus to Ghana
football,” Mr. Nti added.
WADA was founded in 1999 because of what had been a growing
international effort to counter the effects of
performance-enhancing substances in sport. Their supreme
international authority comes with respect to both doping test
procedures and the determination of what substances will be the
subject of athletic sanction when detected.
