The President of the Ghana Football Association, Mr. Kurt Edwin Simeon-Okraku, has urged the Ghana Premier League (GPL) clubs to adopt and utilize new media as a means for enhancing their incomes.
President Okraku admonished all 18 Premier league clubs to specifically latch onto the social networking site, YouTube, as a means of generating and increasing revenue through digital mobilization.
In describing a pathway for Premier League clubs to generate additional revenue, President Okraku urged them to invest heavily in content creation which will ultimately yield financial benefits for the top-flight teams via the Youtube platform.
In describing a study that he conducted, President Okraku set out to find out how Ghanaian clubs are taking advantage of social media to reach and improve engagement with their fanbases; he also looked at the practical ways in which the clubs could crucially benefit financially through personalized digital experiences for the supporters.
"In the past few days, I have had to think about how we can tell our stories better using very cost effective but reliable mediums. So I decided to conduct a research to know how our GPL clubs are making good use of new media platforms," President Okraku stated in a Facebook post.
"We will find here (in his Facebook post) the results of my research. At the end ,we will all realise we have to do more than we are currently doing as clubs."
"I looked at all our GPL clubs to see how many of them are making good use of new media platforms. Here, I looked at how many of our GPL clubs have developed the appetite to make money via the platform called YouTube."
Sad to relate, the research showed a disappointing 11 Ghana Premier League teams are yet to take advantage of Youtube as a marketing tool to generate income.
A further depressing nine (9) Ghana Premier League clubs do not have any YOUTUBE ACCOUNT at all to underline the clubs' failure to tap into this vital financial resource and tool for revenue mobilisation.
"To my surprise, even though we all cry about the lack of money , it looks like we are unconcerned about using non-conventional ways to generate revenue.
"From our 18 GPL clubs, only 7 have very active YouTube accounts. We also discovered that 2 of our clubs are not actively using their Youtube accounts.
"Finally ,as many as 9 of our GPL CLUBS DO NOT HAVE YouTube accounts at all.. In an era where we cry about scarcity in financial inflows, it's imperative we make use of every available potential revenue stream.
"YouTube is a medium we can all harness, to not only tell our stories, but also to bring in money to take care of our daily operations."
President Kurt Okraku called on the clubs to have a reality check and actively look at utilising YouTube to enhance their incomes.
President Simeon-Okraku's call is in line with the Ghana Football Association's (GFA) mantra of igniting passion and creating wealth for all football clubs in Ghana.
Youtube is an essential social networking too which has the propensity to generate huge revenue for football clubs if harnessed through a well thought-out plan and investment in content creation.
GFA Communications