Ghana profits from football feast

By Stephen Evans
Business presenter, BBC World Service, Accra

Vendors hope to profit from the tournament

The wonder of the Africa Cup of Nations is that there do not seem to be any fake shirts to be had.

None.

In a country where hawking goods on the street is a past-time second only to soccer, the authorities have controlled the supply of the bright gold Ghana tops with a grip like a vice.

If it's got the official Africa Cup logo on it, but it's not licensed by the organisers, then it simply doesn't appear in the big buckets of shirts and trinkets on the heads of hawkers who meander between cars at traffic lights.

Partly, it's because the local organising committee has its own counter-army of inspectors out, policing the sellers.

But, partly, too, it's because Ghana's organisers got the cooperation of the customs authorities in their own and other countries.

If a company trying to export to Ghana isn't on the official list of licensees, the goods get stopped at the border.

'Leg drain'

"It's not been easy," Kofi Amoa, who chair's the committee organising the tournament, tells the BBC.

"But we've been steadfast. We even went beyond the borders of Ghana to customs institutions in other countries.

"In Thailand and all these places, merchandise has been stopped. If you're not on our list, you won't be allowed to ship your goods. And if they get to the Ghana borders, they will be stopped there. We've arrested a lot of people and confiscated their merchandise."

The organisers see protecting their revenue as crucial to nurturing the future of the game in Ghana.

Money, after all, buys pitches and might stop what Mr Amoa calls the "leg drain" to European clubs.

"We've been very hard on bootleg marketing," says Mr Amoa, "because we believe it is not going to help develop the game of football."

Short-term impact

Shops have been charged for the right to sell the official merchandise like shirts and caps - from $1,000 to sell trinkets up to $500,000 to the firm importing and distributing them.

The network of distribution is a triumph of apparently disorganised organisation in that the ultimate sellers are invariably people on the street.

Not a fake shirt in sight

Beatrice Masopgah, for example, has a stall near Oxford Street in Accra.

Every morning she goes to a big central, teeming warehouse for her supply.

The official tournament shirts then sell for about $25, about double the price of much more ornate and beautiful traditional shirts alongside.

Beatrice thinks that the tournament has boosted her business, but the boost will end with the final whistle.

On top of all the individuals with a commercial involvement, there are the corporate sponsors of the tournament.

These are usually companies that are big in Africa, but not globally.

Africa, after all, is a lot of people without the spending power of Europe, much of Asia and North America.

Standard Bank, Africa's biggest bank, has spent $2.1m on sponsorship.

"It offers such a huge platform to project the brand across Africa," says the bank's head of marketing in Ghana, Mawuko Afadzinu.

"We are told the viewership is four billion. The passion is immeasurable. We've been able to tie in the business aspect with corporate guests. The pay-back is pretty impressive."

Government efforts

Ghana has spent about $200m on two new stadia and the refurbishment of two existing ones, but installed restaurants, conference centres and hotels in the hope that the buildings will have life after the Africa Cup.

Every government politician you talk to says it's money well spent, but they would wouldn't they?

The finance minister, Kwadwo Baah Wiredu, tells me there had already been an expansion of the economy because of the competition, and it had prompted industries to sort themselves out.

"The internal airline systems were not working but because of the competition, that's been put in good shape," he says.

The government is now better placed to benefit too.

It's changed the tax system so it gets more taxation from less formal sellers.

Rather than trying and failing to tax them for every sale of every good, as was the way in the past, it now has a flat rate for each seller in the form of a tax stamp which they must renew every three months and always display.

The completely footloose traders who ply between cars with great buckets of merchandise on their heads probably could still evade taxes, but the stall-holders who previously could now can't.

Tax revenues

That means, by the way, that tax revenue is said to be rising by more than 30% every year recently.

It may also be because a democratic government means people feel some obligation to pay, whereas in the past of rulers who got power by coups, people felt their taxes went into corrupt pockets.

"There appears to be more acceptance of taxation than in the past," the country's chief revenue collector, Harry Owusu, tells the BBC.

"If people see their politicians squandering their taxes, then they become resistant to paying."

So if the tax man gains from the tournament, is there anyone who loses?

It may be the big European clubs with their highly expensive stars absent at the height of the European season, clubs like Barcelona (Samuel Eto'o - Cameroon) and Chelsea (Didier Drogba - Cote d'Ivoire).

Mr Amoa says the big European clubs should see it as an investment and a duty.

"The European clubs need to understand that it is even beneficial for them to let these players come," he says.

"The ordinary people here are excited to see these players for the first time. Normally, they only see them on the television. They bond with the people and that means people become spectators of the bigger football enterprise."

Stephen Evans presents the World Service's "Business Daily" on Friday at 0830 from Accra on the business behind the Africa Cup of Nations.