FIFA-banned former president of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kwesi Nyantakyi, has alleged without evidence that he paid $100,000 through renowned lawyer Kwame Gyan, a lecturer at Legon, to be given as bribe to investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, to influence them from releasing the investigative video, Number 12, which saw his ouster.
“Before the video was released, a former colleague at the GFA Exco, Adam Munkaila, took me to Anas’ lawyers, a certain Kwame Gyan, a lecturer at Legon. I met him at his residence around Westland and he told me Anas was his student and had informed him he needed $150,000 to kill the story.
“I had never been to his house before. I gave them $100,000, but they told me the amount was inadequate and later went ahead to release the video,” he said in an interview with Captain Smart on Onua TV yesterday.
He continued that “After the video came out, I asked for a refund and even the refund was done in pieces. Today, they would bring $20,000, and the next day another $10,000. They were giving me stories, but eventually I got everything back.”
Nyantakyi also alleged that Anas’ lawyers told him the $100, 000 was inadequate and so they went ahead to air the video.
Recall that in June 2018, Anas released a video investigation that captured the 55-year-old along with several other football administrators and officials compromising the integrity of the game at a monumental scale.
The Number 12: When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm, is an investigative documentary by Ghanaian award-winning journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, and his investigative group, Tiger Eye P. I., which premiered on 6 June 2018, highlighted the level of corruption in football and among football administrators in Ghana. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) provided technical support for the investigation and secured the right to show it to a global audience.
Nyantakyi resigned from all his roles at the GFA, CAF, and FIFA and was in the end handed a lifetime ban from football, which later was reduced to 15 years.
