By Daniel Oduro
Our job as journalists is to primarily educate the
public on matters we understand better than they (the public) do.
Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a lot
of talk about the Black Stars budget for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
The Government of Ghana recently approved a GHC 24m
budget for the tournament and even though the government approved figures are
significantly less than the $20m+ that was earlier rumored and speculated in
the media, it still hasn’t stop many of the citizenry from criticizing and
bastardizing the Sports Ministry, GFA and the playing body of the senior
national team.
Now, in this piece I have attempted to put this
discussion into perspective per my understanding and try to explain some basic
things. This is not an attempt to hold brief for anybody, neither is it to
justify the budget or otherwise.
First of all, it is important to appreciate that the FIFA World Cup is a
self-financing tournament and is hardly a tournament where participating countries
make a loss on their investment, and i will explain below.
Any country that qualified to the 2014 FIFA World Cup is guaranteed $9.5m in
the worst case scenario. Now, this is the breakdown.
Ghana is expecting (that's if they haven’t already received it) a preparation
fee of $1.5m from FIFA for qualifying for/to the World Cup.
In the event that the Black Stars are eliminated from the Group stages of the
tournament (which i call the worst case scenario), the Black Stars will receive
an additional $8m from FIFA, which will bring Ghana's total earnings at the World
Cup to $9.5m.
FIFA pays for the accommodation, internal travel and feeding of a fifty (50)
member contingent for each of the 32 participating countries. If you exceed the
fifty (50) allocated to you, then you will pay for the additional persons
yourself.
So really what eats up our WC budget? Mostly the appearance fee for the players
eats up the chunk of the budget but let us do some simple and basic arithmetic
(I am not even that good at maths).
We are told that each player will get $75,000 as appearance fee. We have 23
players so that will amount to $1.725m. The coach will earn twice the appearance
fee and every bonus that the players get (it's in his contract if u care to
know). So Kwesi Appiah will get $150,000 as appearance fee, add that to the
$1.725m and you get $1.875m.
I don't know how much the other back room staff ( assistant coaches, video
analyst, scouts, management members of the FA etc get) so i can’t add any sum
there.
Secondly, the Black Stars have agreed on 15,000 as the winning bonus per game
at the tournament but that is only on paper, and i will explain, relax. Now
during major tournaments, players are paid qualification bonuses, the agreed
wining bonus only serves as a guide of how much they will earn as lump sum
during the Group Stages.
So assuming the Black Stars qualify from their Group, each player will earn an
additional $45,000 as "qualification bonus' reward; $15,000 x 3 games. (Remember
it won't matter if they lose some of the Group games, they will still get the
entire $45,000. What is important is for them to qualify from the Group).
However, if the team fails to qualify from the Group Stage of the tournament,
they will receive NOTHING since they would not have qualified from the Group,
it won’t matter if they win one game and lose the remaining two. Once they
don’t qualify for the next stage, they will get NOTHING as winning or
qualification bonuses except their appearance fee. (There is a big chance the
team will be eliminated from the Group Stages and that is why the players wanted
a higher appearance fee just in case they don’t qualify from their group)
So like I said earlier, if Ghana qualifies from their Group (which has Germany,
Portugal and USA) the players will all earn $45,000 in addition to their
$75,000 appearance fee. The coach will
get twice that amount which is $90,000. So still on the math’s, assuming the
Stars qualify from their Group and each get $45,000 X 23 players. That will be
$1,035,000 + $90,000 (For the coach) which will bring you to $1.125m, add that
to the $1.875m for appearance fees for the players and coach and you get
exactly $3m.
So if you subtract $3m from the $9.5m Ghana will get from FIFA then really this
country does not make a loss playing at the World Cup. Yes of course, when you
factor in the pre-tournament camping in the United States of America and
Amsterdam, then the three million dollar figure $3m I quoted will go up but
whatever be the case, the budget cannot exceed the $9.5m will get in the event
they crash out in the first round of the tournament.
Lastly, i think it is important to state that the government
of Ghana is not paying for all of this. What they do is to pre-finance the
budget. The GFA returns government's investment once the tournament is over.
The GFA goes to government to pre-finance the World Cup budget because the
National team is a property of the state and also because the prize monies are
paid by FIFA only after the tournament.
There are issues with the 2014World Cup budget and
why the figures for the previous World Cups in 2006 and 2010 were soo huge, but
gradually we will get to that desired destination where there is transparency
in the administration of football and sports in general in this country.
There are still questions to be asked, questions
like how much the GFA president and his executive members take as salaries and
bonuses during tournaments like the World Cup, questions like how much the
other backroom staff take all need to be answered.
But if the monies FIFA’s give to all the
participating countries are spent judiciously and only on the playing and
technical staff, then there is no way the country will make a loss by
participating in the World Cup.
Email: odurodaniel75@yahoo.com
