Ghana Rugby suspension: Herbert Mensah heads to high court

Suspended Board Chairman and Chief Executive of the Ghana Rugby Football Union (GRFU), Herbert Mensah has headed to the Accra High Court, praying his suspension notice would be called off.

The writ, which was filed on May 20, 2021, has Herbert Mensah, Erica Amoako, Steve Noi, Rafatu Inusah, and Chester Annie as Plaintiffs, while acting leader of the Union, James Ankwandoh Nunoo, Abdul Aziz, Bismarck Amponsah, Michael Ako Wilson, and Societe Generale Ghana Limited have been named as Respondents.

It states that, Mr James Nunoo is ‘commanded’ to enter an appearance in court within eight days upon receipt of the writ or judgement will be granted in his absence without further notice.

The writ says meetings convened by the Board of which Nunoo acts as a leader were unconstitutional and demanded that all such meetings be deemed ‘null and void’ and of no legal binding on his position as the Union’s head.

Mr Mensah also prayed the court to place an injunction on all meetings yet to be organized by the Board and force the board to retract and apologize for causing harm to his person with misleading publications.

Societe Generale has been named as 5th Defendant in the writ because the Board froze the assets and accounts of the Union. Sources say attempts to unfreeze the accounts proved futile, leading to the court action.

The court documents noted that “the GRFU Accounts with the 5th Defendant have been frozen unlawfully by the 5th Defendant, creating severe hardship to the  GRFU in its activities,” and that, with ,no legality’ to the action of the first four respondents, “the 5th Defendant is competent to determine, having had access to the GRFU Constitution that the 1st to 4th defendants acted unlawfully in their communication to them.”

This comes on the back of a petition from the Ghana Rugby Union Players Association to the Rugby Board in which Mr. Mensah was accused of a number of things including conflict of interest, unilateralism and physical assault on players and coaches which further called for his suspension on May 10, 2021.