Dodoo has filed a GH¢200,000 (£83,000/$132,000) defamation suit against Frank Appiah, who supports Benson Tongo Baba, the official who claims that he is still officially the President of the GOC.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended the GOC for Government interference earlier this month after a resolution could not be found following the row started that begun when Baba disputed his defeat to Dodoo in the GOC elections in June 2009.

If the row is not resolved before London 2012 then Ghana could miss the Olympics.

Action has been taken against Appiah after he claimed during a radio interview broadcast last month that Dodoo had used banned performance-enhancing drugs during his athletics career, the highlight of which was when he won the gold medal in the triple jump at the 1987 All African Games. 

The solicitor of Dodoo, who is also the chairman of the Ghana Athletics Association, claimed that he had given Appiah the opportunity to withdraw his comments made on Accra-based Radio Gold but he had just repeated them.

Dodoo represented Ghana in four Olympics and was voted Ghana's Sportsman of the Year in 1987.

Solicitor Kissi Agyebeng claimed that the claims had damaged the reputation of Dodoo, who is now a distinguished professor of sociology and is the Director of the Regional Institute for Population Studies at the University of Ghana.

Appiah was last year questioned by Ghana's Serious Fraud Office over allegations of financial impropriety linked to the GOC.

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