The Television Rights Holders of the Ghana Premier League and MTN FA Cup competition, StarTimes Ghana, has said the just-ended Ghana Premier League season was a good season with challenges.

Public Relations Officer of Africa’s leading digital TV outfit, Eli Kondoh said even though there were no fans at the various match centres at the start of the season as a result of the dreadful covid-19, his outfit is satisfied with the season.

“Of course, the season did not start with the usual fans in the stadium and so obviously it affected the ambience needed for a live football match but aside that getting to the end of the season, when the government permitted match centres to admit 25% of their capacities, it helped with a good ambience around considering the fact that the season was very competitive, especially with the fact that any of the clubs in the top six could win the league and any of the clubs in the bottom six could get relegated. All in all, it was very competitive and interesting for us as broadcasters to be putting that competitive edge on TV. We were excited because it was a good season”, he told Dunkwa-based Solar FM on Friday.

Touching on some of the challenges that his outfit encountered, Mr. Kondoh said that the nature of some of the pitches used coupled with the architectural designs of the centres made it difficult for his outfit to produce quality images on TV. He was however hopeful that with time, things will improve for the outside world to experience the beauty of Ghana football.

“Of course difficulties are bound to be encountered in every event. For instance, some of the pitches at the match centres did not look good on TV. Aside that some of the match centres did not help, architecture-wise for the TV Crew. At a point, when we went to some of the venues, we had to hire scaffolds used for painting and construction works to mount our cameras for our camera men to work with, at the detriment of their welfare”, he recounted.

“We took that risk to ensure that we provided some good pictures on TV for Ghanaians and those abroad as well so these were some of the challenges we encountered and we hope with time, we will develop and grow out of this so we can have the best of TV coverage and the best of looks in terms of our infrastructure on TV so the whole world would see the beauty of Ghana football”, he added.

The former YFM Sports Presenter called on the Ghana Football Association to take steps to ensure that the criteria for selecting venues for TV coverage are revised.

“The FA has to revise the conditions that must exist for some venues to qualify for live telecast of matches so we can get quality images for Ghanaians and the outside world. These are some of the key pointers that have to be looked at going forward”, he ended.

StarTimes Ghana signed a 5-year exclusive TV Rights deal worth $5.25m with the Ghana FA in January 2020.

Story by Emmanuel Baah- Aboagye, Solar FM, Dunkwa-On-Offin

Follow me on Twitter @EmmaBaahAboagye