Former Ghana sports minister Vanderpuye: Free Nyantakyi Movement is not wrong

Former Ghana sports minister Nii Lante Vanderpuye believes calls for a drop of charges against embattled former Football Association (GFA) boss Kwesi Nyantakyi are not out of place.

The ex-Caf vice president has been facing fraud charges since being hit by a bribery and match-fixing scandal in June 2018.

The corruption incident saw him lose his coveted position at Caf and his GFA presidency in addition to getting an indefinite Fifa ban from all football activities.

"If people are yearning for 'Free Nyantakyi Movement', I don’t think there is anything wrong," Vanderpuye, who was heavily involved in a leadership battle with the Nyantakyi-led FA administration during his time as sports minister, told Asampa FM.

"In this world, I think everybody should be given a second chance. Even God who created us forgives our sins and offers us a second chance.

"Even murderers are given the chance in prisons to reform provided they are not killed."

"I don’t have anything against Nyatakyi as a person, he is my friend and I don’t believe he also has personal things against me.

"We only did not agree on the paths to do certain things. It means that as human beings our path can cross at any time.

"He believed this is the way we have been doing things while I thought this is how we have to do it, and that should not bring a problem between us."

Nyantakyi was GFA president between 2005 and 2018, his leadership collapsed by an investigative documentary exposé by renowned undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas.

He has been slapped with court charges but a group calling itself the 'Free Nyantakyi Movement' wants the former FA boss liberated.

"Not only Ghana football has seen corruption scandals. Even Fifa itself had the same situation with Sepp Blatter, the former Fifa Boss," former Ghana deputy sports minister Joseph Yamin told Agyenkwa FM on the recent development.

"In Italy, the same cases were recorded. But here, the president is in someone’s pocket and the case has died a long time.

"The government said they don’t have interest in it again so I don’t know why the football administrators are resurrecting this case again, they should let sleeping dogs lie.”

Nyantakyi is currently contesting the Fifa life ban.