Acceptance Speech By GOC President Richard Akpokavie, esq

Message of hope, inspiration and a new beginning

My dear federation officials, the GOC elections 2025 is over. Like the sportsmen and women, that we are we, after the competition we shake hands because we know that we can either win or lose.

As members of the Olympic family we stand for 3 important CORE values: EXCELLENCE, RESPECT AND FRIENDSHIP. These values are the foundation of the Olympic Movement, aiming to promote sport, culture and education for a better world.

Excellence – this value encourages individuals to strive for their best in all areas of life.

Respect – the Olympic Movement values respect for oneself, others, the rules of any game or competition and the environment.

Friendship – we are provided with a platform for fostering understanding and building bridges between people from different cultures and backgrounds. It emphasizes the importance of mutual respect and cooperation.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Olympic brand is the most cherished global sports brand. We must remember that once we represent the Olympic family we must strive to conform to its values.

If we want to get the respect and support of Ghanaians and the corporate world especially to fund our activities, we must do everything to remain united as the leading voice representing the interest of the many young people who play sports.

Working as a team or unit is therefore crucial to our success. There are too many disputes that is hindering progress and unity. There are several court actions involving federations and we cannot progress if we continue along this path. Most jurisdictions provide for a sports tribunal or arbitration panel to resolve sorting disputes.

One of the things we need to do is to get every federation to make provision for an alternate dispute resolution mechanism in its constitution or statutes.  We also need to provide for an ADR system at the GOC so that dissatisfied persons or federations can appeal to the GOC tribunal for redress. It must be mandatory such that if you don’t exhaust the ADR system at the federation level and at GOC the court should not entertain your case.

We must make a deliberate effort to take our disputes out of the traditional court system.

My federation leaders, in the coming weeks all federation presidents will be invited to meet for about 2 – 3 days so that together we can chart a path and plan for the next 4 years. We need to discuss important things and come to some consensus on how we want to achieve our objectives, especially funding of sports.

Let me just emphasize that I am passionate about athlete welfare and empowerment, women empowerment and safeguarding and protection of women and these will be top of my agenda. It is completely unacceptable that our athletes voices are not heard at congress and on the executive board. We have to change this immediately such that athletes’ voices will be heard not only at congress but on the executive board and on every GOC committee.

In this modern era it is sad that we have so many few women in leadership in the federations. In the next 4 years this must change. We must take deliberate steps to build the capacity of our women.

We want to thank you all for your support and remind you that this is a brand new day for Ghana sports. We must chart a new path and move sports in this country forward. I will be counting on ALL of you and remember we are a team. We are Team GOC and all the federations are members of this team.

With teamwork and hard work we shall achieve our goals.

Let me end by assuring ANOCA, the Hon Minister for Sports and Recreation and the Director General of the NSA and his deputies that we are determined to collaborate with you to make Ghana sports better.

Ghana Sports WE DARE TO DREAM AGAIN!!!!!

 *President Richard Akpokavie Esq.*