Ghana President Atta Mills is dead, GFA expresses sorrow

Ghana football family has been thrown into mourning after the country’s president John Evans Atta Mills died on Tuesday.

The former president of Hearts of Oak, a leading Ghanaian football team, was pronounced dead at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra.

Mills celebrated his 68th birthday just three days ago.

The Ghana Football Association whose president Kwesi Nyantakyi was away at the Olympic Games in London, issued a moving statement to express its sorrow over the death.

“On behalf of the football family, we extend our condolences to his wife, his family and the people of Ghana for this big blow,” the statement signed by Kwesi Nyantakyi read.

“This agonizing loss will be felt by all football-loving people of Ghana as President Mills was an ardent football fan.”

The GFA paid a glowing tribute to Mills who served on various committees on the federation and was hailed by the local contribution to the development of football in the country.

“He served his country diligently in football as he was once the chairman of the Black Stars Management Committee and also a board chairman of Accra Hearts of Oak,” Nyantakyi said in the statement.

“When a country loses its leader there is no greater pain let alone the man who was the leader of the country when Ghana won Africa’s first U-20 World Cup in 2009.

“President Mills was also a key supporter of the Black Stars as they reached the quarter-final of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

“His deep interest in the game was once again demonstrated just last month when the floodlights went off during the 2014 World Cup qualifier against Lesotho in Kumasi.

“He personally phoned the GFA president Kwesi Nyantakyi to express his concern about the sudden failure of the floodlights during the game.”

Vice-president John Dramani Mahama was sworn in as President of the country by the Chief Justice Theodora Georgina Wood on Tuesday night.

Atta Mills joins a growing number of sitting African president who died – leaders of Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia all died recently.

Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika passed away few months ago.

Zambian president ­Levi Mwanawasa suffered a stroke during a crucial African Union summit in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt and died days later.

Ditto Nigerian president Umaro Yar’adua, who spent months in a Saudi Arabian hospital before word of a possible presidential takeover made his wife decide to bring him back to Abuja, where he died in May 2010.

Source Ghana Soccer

Category: Soccer