By Ken Bediako
I am used to citing a lot of quotes by Ohene Djan, Ghana’s foremost sports administrator in most of my write-ups. The Aburi royal was simply passionate about sports in general and football in particular.
He was quite witty and courageous as well and never felt intimidated by sports critics. He had a tough skin and seemed to have ready and appropriate answers to all queries he faced from the aggressive sports media.
I recall when his pet club Real Republikans won bronze medal in the maiden experimental Africa Cup for four champion clubs, his reply to critics who frowned on the bronze medal was this “In a competition like this no medals can be said to be inferior.”
It is in the same vein that I regard as worthy the bronze medal won by the hurriedly assembled Black Stars in the just ended Unity Cup four nation tournament in London.
Even though the Black Stars lost the first match to perennial rivals Nigeria after a rather slow first half, they recovered brilliantly and pulled a goal back in the thrilling second half. Indeed, they mounted such incessant pressure in the second half and deserved at least the equaliser that never came.
You could see Otto Addo’s newcomers gradually found their lost confidence as the game progressed.
Apart from goalkeeper Benjamin Asare who appeared to be nervous throughout, the rest showed amazing confidence and their splendid show against Trinidad and Tobago that resulted in a sparkling 4-0 win did not surprise many football analysts. There is a glimmer of hope that when they stay together for a longer period, the renascent Black Stars will deliver the goods sooner than later.
With this remarkable progress by the GFA, I was thinking they would be capable of supervising a successful football league season to give fans the hope of a bright future for the 67-year-old national pastime-the Premier League.
From time immemorial the closing stages of the league portends all kinds of intrigues, particularly hooliganism at centres featuring relegation haunted clubs. The Bakate-Nations FC match at Nyinasi was a hot battle between potential champions and potential relegation candidates, one would therefore had expected the GFA to have taken extra security measures to ensure a trouble free encounter. Too bad fans were robbed of their money since the match was abandoned midway through the second half. We are told Nations FC on the threshold of becoming champions for the first time, walked off in protest against alleged bad officiating. I have to reserve my comments since the GFA were yet to give a ruling at the time of writing this article on Tuesday.
It’s been a long time since I heard of such an incident since Asante Kotoko halted a Ghalca Top 4 match against Kpandu Hearts of Lions at Accra Stadium in 2005. I still recollect Jerry Asare’s famous “Yenbo bio” clarion call.
As for tail end skirmishes in the Premier league history you have it galore.
In 1992 for example there was this interesting episode in Tamale. RTU on the brink of relegation and needed to win big, to avoid relegation trashed no hoppers Kumasi Cornerstone 5-0, and then the rigmarole began. The Directors of Cornerstone came out publicly to declare that it had no knowledge of the team travelling to Tamale to honour the match. A statement issued by the Directors said the week prior to the match, the entire playing body had boycotted training a decision had therefore been taken not to honour the match because it was obvious they could not raise a formidable team.
The statement alleged that Alhaji Karim Grunsah a long-time supporter of Corners, had gathered some reserve players of the club to play the match without the knowledge of the board. The directors appealed to the GFA to declare the result of the match null and void. The GFA however maintained the results and fined the directors of Cornerstone 50,000 cedis jointly and severally.
Meanwhile, Alhaji Grunsah denied that he sent the Corners team to Tamale.
“I was at the Kumasi Stadium that day to watch the Kotoko-Diamond Stars league match,” he said in a statement.
In a related development, the executive of RTU described the allegation by the Directors of Corners as flimsy. The statement said if Corners had problems preparing for the Tamale match, they should have informed the GFA. RTU then appealed to their supporters to be calm because the club remains a bona fide first division club.
If Cornerstone had failed to turn up RTU would have been awarded two goals and three points but they needed a higher goal tally to stay in the top division. Observers believe it was therefore in their interest that the match was honoured so they stood the chance of winning big.
Two other final round fixtures attracted some attention.
The match between Afienya United and Great Olympics at Accra Stadium was so drab that on three occasions the fans registered their protest by capturing the ball when it was kicked into touch.
Midway through the second half referee Adusah had to call the players to the centre of the pitch and order them to be serious. It was a goalless affair.
At Ashanti Mampong, the match between Kumapem Stars and Accra Hearts of Oak could not be honoured because Hearts (in white) refused to change their jerseys which clashed those of Kumapem. Hearts insisted that according to the laws, the home team should change. Referee TLK Amoako ruled however that Hearts should change because, they failed to attend the pre-match conference where things would have been sorted out. Hearts stuck to their decision and went to the pitch at 4pm. Kumapem had been there since 2:54pm pm in such a stalemate the referee called off the match at 420pm.
Some of the paying fans went wild. Hearts later reported that four of their players Moffat, Sam Yeboah, Julius Gomez and Joe Gyekye suffered slight injuries from missiles thrown by angry fans. The GFA later declared Hearts losers and fined them 100,000 cedis with 50,000 going to Kumapem for expenses.
It was indeed the end to the league which saw the famous founding first division Kumasi Cornerstone and hitherto powerful Okwawu United facing relegation alongside Ho Voradep and Akwatia Diamond Stars.
The usually outspoken Prof Mawuse Dake, chairman of Voradep Board of Directors attributed the bizarre end of the 1992 league to an attempt by some club officials to exert bad and undue influence on some club officials and players to lose matches. He said the matter of relegation of clubs could not be deemed to have been settled unless all issues concerning bribery and uncompetitiveness were fully dealt with. Prof Mawuse Dake was a lone voice in the wilderness. His club Voradep, were relegated alongside Okwawu, Corners and Diamond Stars.
Surely the Ghana League has come a long way but have we learnt any lessons?
Cheers everybody and keep loving sports.
