The club stated that although they will adhere to the schedule of their remaining matches, they will not step onto the pitch, resulting in automatic forfeits

In an exclusive interview with Citi

 Sports on Monday, January 19, 2026, Salia admitted that referees are human and can make mistakes, but emphasised that the errors have become too frequent and consistent to ignore.

He further noted that the boycott is aimed at prompting the Ghana Football Association to take serious steps to improve officiating standards.

“We are not saying that officiating is peculiar to young apostles.

Every team suffers from it, but the rate at which we are suffering it is beyond normal, and we believe it’s high time we spoke to the football authorities for them to up their

 game relative to officiating the country.

“Just last Saturday, Kotoko scored a nice goal against Bibiani Gold Stars, it was not made to stand. The examples are across the board,” he said.

Alhaji Mahama Salia also dismissed claims that the club’s boycott of the Ghana Premier League is due to financial challenges, insisting that the decision is solely a protest against poor officiating.

“If I’m doing a team and I can’t do the team, it’s selling the team wrong in Ghana football or wrong in Ghana. So the issue is not about finances to run the club.

Didn’t the GFA give all the teams 10 billion old Ghana cedis each?

“I’ve given you a litany of results; there are games that we played in which referees or officials didn’t apply the rules fairly.

“Our game against Kotoko, a referee’s assessor, Alex Kotie, agreed with what we said that the Kotoko penalty is not a penalty and that we had a penalty which was overturned and that the game we played beyond the given time,” he concluded.

Young Apostles have accumulated 22 points from 19 matches, with their next fixture scheduled against Dreams FC.