CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
Football administration is a subset of Sports Management. Kelley et al (1994) defined sport management in a broad sense as “any combination of skills related to planning, organizing, directing, controlling, budgeting, leading, and evaluating within the context of an organisation or department whose primary product or service is related to sport and/or physical activity.”
Football administration the world over involves the supervision of its competitions, regulations, as well as ways of improving the game.
The highest level of football administration is in areas such as the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA), the various confederations under FIFA such as the Confederation of African Football (CAF). At the lower levels are the various federations such as the Ghana Football Association (GFA) and under the federations there are boards that are in charge of the day to day running of the domestic league such as the Premier League Board (PLB) in Ghana and the Professional League Board in England.
The Premier League Board (PLB) is the board responsible for the organisation of the top-flight league in Ghana designated as the Ghana Premier League. The First Capital Plus Bank is the headline sponsor of the league and the Board is the lead agency of domestic football administration in Ghana.
The Premier League Board like any other football administration through its activities generates large volumes of physical and electronic data and documents on a daily basis. These activities and transactions serve as records. The documents and data are very vital and need to be
preserved. Some of the activities and transactions undertaken by the PLB that lead to the creation of records are players registration, match reports, reports of the various standing committees like the Disciplinary Committee, Match Review Panel, Referees Committee, Safety and Security Committee, etc.
Record includes all the documents that institutions or individuals create or receive in the course of administrative and operational transactions. The records themselves form a part of or provide evidence of such transactions. As evidence, they are subsequently maintained by those responsible for the transactions, who keep the records for their own future use or others with a legitimate interest in the records, example Auditors.
Records come in a variety of media. Many are still created on paper, for example, correspondence, vouchers, contracts and supporting documentation. Information may also be recorded on paper in ledgers, journals and registers, or they may be in the form of computer printouts. Such records may be hand-written, hand-drawn, typed or printed. Increasingly, computers create financial records, and they may only exist in electronic format. Electronic mail is a form of record.
Records serve a number of purposes, namely
- Provide a corporate memory
- Serve as evidence
- Resource for decision making
- Meet statutory and regulatory requirements
- Formulate policy, manage programmes and delivery of service
- Protect human rights
- Document activities and achievements
The Board requires for the purpose of sound administration an efficient and effective records management system for the “… control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use, and disposition of records, including processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records” (ISO 15489- 1:2001)
While the Board’s records systems should provide the source of information about business activities in order to support business processes and business decisions, it must also ensure accountability to present and future stakeholders. The records must provide consistency, continuity and productivity in the management of the Board and help maintain corporate, personal or collective memory (ISO 15489-1:2001, clause 4) The Board’s remit includes measuring progress and outcomes and protecting the rights of its constituent members. Records will enable it support and document formulation of policies and managerial decision making, provide protection and support in litigation. Similarly, records will help manage risks associated with the existence of, or lack of evidence of league activities and enable programmes and services, support financial management and ensure statutory responsibilities and transparency requirements are met. Working within a framework of policies, management practices and organisational culture, the Premier League Board is expected to create, maintain and protect the evidence that they have acted responsibly and appropriately. Well managed and reliable records provide this evidence. Values such as trust, transparency and accountability are not abstract concepts in football administration. They are at issue in every decision of the PLB, every action it takes and in every transaction.
In effect there must be in football administration standard practices or business rules that:
- require employees create records according to business needs and business process that adequately document the business activities in which they take part.
- ensure that information and processing systems that support business activities create appropriate records as part of supporting those activities.
- ensure that the transparency of record processes and the adequacy records systems throughout the life of the record.
- ensure that records are maintained, stored and preserved for the period of their usefulness to the organisation, and if appropriate to the stakeholders.
- ensure that records are disposed of only in accordance with a defined approval process.
These standard practices and business rules must be conformed to, to ensure proper management of records at the Premier League Board and failure to do so leads to poor records and information management and its adverse effect of huge financial cost in terms of wasted and inefficient work, duplicated effort, legal liability and lost opportunity.
Football is the world’s most popular team sports (World Book, 2005). In Ghana, the game of football is associated with incredible amount of passion and for all the emotions football engenders its evidence-base, and in particular the integrity of its records must be secured. In order to assure the integrity of its records, the records and information management policies and procedures of the Board should “… reflect the application of the regulatory environment to their business processes “(ISO 15489-1:2001, clause 5). This environment consists of laws and regulations including those relating specifically to records, archives, access, privacy, evidence, e- governance and data collection. Others are the mandatory standards of practice, voluntary codes
of best practices, codes of conduct and ethics as well as identifiable expectations of the community about what is acceptable behavior. Of course, the functions of the Board determines which of the regulatory elements are most applicable to its records management requirements.
Records management responsibilities and authorities should be defined and assigned, and promulgated throughout organisation so that where a specific need to create and capture records is identified, it should be clear who is responsible for taking the necessary action. These responsibilities should be assigned to all employees of the organisation, including records personnel and business unit managers, and should be reflected in job descriptions and similar statements (Akotia, 2012). Specific leadership responsibility and accountability for records management should however be assigned to a person, appropriate authority within the Organisation.
Significantly, football administrators must move beyond the “traditional view, of records management as an administrative responsibility, to see records management as a strategic responsibility…in the same way they might manage financial or human resources within a broad strategic framework” (O’shea,s 1997). It must also be recognised that in an era of electronic information systems aspects of the records management has been devolved to individual desktops requiring organisations to re-assess their responsibilities and strategies for record keeping.
The care of records requires they follow a life cycle management. This is a concept that draws an analogy between the life of biological organism, which is born, lives and dies, and that of a record, which is created, is used for so long as it has continuing value and it is then disposed of by destruction or by transfer to an archival institution (IRMT, 1999). Without it, vast quantities
of records, current and non-current clog up expensive office space and it is virtually impossible to retrieve valuable information. Thus without a management programme that controls records throughout the records life cycle their effective management is at risk, endangering administrative efficiency and citizen rights. Other principles of records care such as the records continuum model which refers to a consistent and coherent regime of management processes from the time of creation of records through to preservation and use of records as archives is a sound management model (Shepherd &Yeo, 2003) The life cycle concept and the continuum model are not incompatible. However, models based on the life cycle concept help to identify stages and actions within records management programme and as a result provide a useful framework for planning and implementation (Shepherd & Yeo, 2003)
In the conduct of football administration, records are created, used and preserved. These three broad categories of records keeping activities consist of:
- Creating records: generating, creating, collecting, capturing, receiving
- Using records: accessing, retrieving, transmitting, dissemination, exchanging, sharing, exploiting
- Preserving records: identifying, organising, describing, classifying, storing, protecting, migrating, disposing
The degree to which these activities are effectively performed depends on whether a strong underlying records and information management infrastructure is in place and effectively implemented. (Lipchak, 2002) This infrastructure is made up of the following components.
- laws and policies that provide the mandate and direction for the creation, use and preservation of information and records; this aspect of the infrastructure provides authority and overall direction
- a governance and accountability framework that integrates and embeds record keeping activities into business processes, identifies records management responsibilities, provides leadership for records management, assesses and manages records-related risks; and monitors and evaluates record keeping performance; this aspect of the infrastructure provides structure, ownership and accountability.
- suitable standards and practice for the management of records over their complete life cycle and in their many media and formats; this aspect provide operational direction
- effective technology-based management systems to support records management activities which include applications and related systems standards and procedures; this aspect provides needed tools
- trained staff and other resources such as adequate budget, equipment and space to support records, information and knowledge management activities; this aspect provides capacity (Lipchak, 2002)
In tandem with an effective record keeping infrastructure, the records system must be supported by an information culture in which political leaders, management and indeed all employees are aware of and appreciate the value of well-managed information and records supporting programmes and governance generally (Akotia, 2012)
Strategies adopted in football administration for documenting its business activities should determine what records are required and when, how and where they should be captured into the records system. Key to these strategies should be documentation of the records systems, setting
standards and measuring compliance and performance against them. Strategies should be documented in a strategic plan such as the Information Management strategic plan which should be incorporated into organisation-wide planning documentation (ISO 15489:1-2001). Control measures such as access monitoring, user verification, authorised destruction and security should be implemented to prevent unauthorised access, destruction, alteration or removal of records.
These controls may reside within the records system or external to it. The measures assure the integrity of records. For digital records however, management may need to prove that any system malfunction, upgrade or regular maintenance does not affect records integrity.
Business processes should be underpinned by procedures and practices that lead to authoritative records with the characteristics of authenticity, reliability, integrity and usability. Besides the records, the characteristics of the records system should meet the same requirements together with features such as compliance, comprehensiveness and systematic (ISO 15489:1-2001, Clause For example, determining what records should be captured and how long they should be kept is most effectively undertaken in a systematic way and according to laws and regulations.
Instruments to standardise decision-making may range from guidelines identifying what document should be destroyed or captured into the system to a formally approved schedule of classes of records, retention periods and appropriate disposition actions that is submitted for approval by the Board. In the electronic records system, determinations about capture and retention should be considered in the system at the outset (ISO 15489-2:2001 clause 4)
To assure authoritative records are captured and maintained, the records system should be subject to compliance monitoring regularly to ensure the procedures and processes of the records system are being implemented according to the anticipated outcomes. Such reviews should
examine organisatinal performance and user satisfaction in tandem with the system (ISO 15489- 1:2001, clause 10) The objectives for monitoring and auditing records systems include:
- to ensure compliance with the organisation’s established standards
- to ensure that records will be accepted as evidence in a court of law should this be required
- to improve an organisation’s performance (ISO 15489-2:2001, clause 5)
As litigation is common and a regular feature in football administration, monitoring will help to ensure continued legal accountability of the records system. Similarly, the monitoring processes should be documented to provide evidence of compliance with policies, procedures and standards which management has adopted. It is also necessary management understands the modus operandi of its evidence-base. These involve:
- understanding of the nature of its records
- care and security arrangements for the records
- business processes and technologies; and their proper implementation (15489-2: 2001, clause 5.2)
The principles of good practice in record keeping are of value even if the need to produce digital records in court never arises. The effort and the resource required to comply quickly bring business benefits, whether the organisation is in court or not.
To efficiently meet the requirements of best practice football administrators should establish an ongoing programme of records training. The programme should cover both the records creators and users on one hand, and on the other, records personnel. Programme objective should be to
ensure that the functions and benefits of managing records as a defining resource of governance are widely understood. It should explain policies and place procedures and processes in a context that gives staff an appreciation of why they are required (Lipshak: 2002). The commitment of management is critical to the success of any training scheme. Where management demonstrates it is committed to implementing the policies and procedures covered in the programme, there is commensurate commitment by trainees.
Appropriate training should be provided for all personnel with any kind of responsibility for records. The international records management standard, ISO 15489-2: 2001, recommends however that there is appropriate training given records personnel. It admits that organisations very often recruit personnel who have professional qualifications in records and information management to manage their records programme and to undertake highly technical processes. Relevant technical skills are critical and should be covered under in-house training progranmmes that include preparing disposition authorities, system design and the operation of electronic systems. An understanding of the organisation’s business objectives and processes is also required.
Well managed records are instruments for achieving accountability, transparency and trust. As evidence, records provide authoritative sources of information that can be used to support decision making and the delivery of programmes and services.
The records created, received by the PLB should be properly managed to ensure efficiency, transparency and accountability.
The International Standards Organisation (ISO 15489-1) provides a framework for records management in terms of identifying the regulatory operations of an organisation and how responsibilities for records management are allocated.
The records created by the PLB should be managed effectively to ensure easy retrieval and also to prevent a situation where records created occupy limited office space without any plan or policy in place to ensure their transition from the time of their creation to disposition.
1.1.1 Study setting
The Premier League Board (PLB) is a subset of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) formed in the early 1950’s, before it affiliated itself to FIFA and CAF in 1958 and 1960 respectively.
The league system in Ghana has always had an organiser since its inception in 1956 and the Ghana Football Association (GFA) was directly in charge of the organisation of the amateur league from 1956/57 season to 1992/93 season.
Accra Hearts of Oak was the first club to win the Ghana topflight League in 1956/57 season and again won it in 1958, however Kumasi Asante Kotoko are the most successful side with 23 league titles.
The Ghana Football Association (GFA) was earlier called the Ghana Amateur Football Association (GAFA) before it was changed to the GFA.
The Ghana FA was solely in charge of the organisation of the Ghana league until 1993 when Enoch Teye Mensah, the Youth and Sports minister at the time led a revolution for Ghana football to go professional
Structures were quickly put in place and a declaration signed by the first division clubs in Ghana at the time at Winneba leading to the formation of the Professional League Board (PLB), now designated the Premier League Board (PLB) to take charge of the day to day administration of the newly formed Ghana Premier League in the 1993/94 season.
Ashanti Gold won the maiden Ghana Premier League and they won it for the first three seasons, before Hearts of Oak won it for a record six consecutive times. Asante Kotoko the most successful club in the history of Ghana league had to wait until 2003 to win their first title.
Ghana Premier League (GPL) champions from (1993/94 season to 2014-15)
Table 1.1 List of Ghana Premier League winners
| List of Ghana Premier league winner | Number of titles |
| Accra Hearts of Oak | 9 |
| Kumasi Asante Kotoko | 6 |
| Obuasi Ashanti Gold | 4 |
| Aduana Stars | 1 |
| Berekum Chelsea | 1 |
The PLB is made up of a Chairman who is appointed by the president of the GFA, a vice chairman and other members, who together constitute the board.
In 2015 the Premier League Board was reconstituted to include a representative each from all the sixteen (16) clubs, following King Faisal court case against the Ghana FA for unfair delivering
of justice, after their protest and appeal against Aduana Stars and the Disciplinary Committee, respectively were thrown out by its judicial bodies.
The work of the Premier League Board is being complemented by standing committees and departments set up by the Ghana Football Association.
These committees are the Judicial Committee, the Player Status Committee, the Referees Committee, the Match Review Panel, the Research and Information Management Committee, and the Security and Safety Committee, IT department, the Registry, the Front Desk and the office of the GFA General Secretary.
