Peeved Aduana Stars are set to petition the Ghana Football Association (GFA) for compensation following the FA’s late hour decision to postpone the premier league opener between Aduana Stars and Accra Hearts of Oak scheduled earlier for Saturday, November 14, 2020.
Aduana Stars were scheduled to host Accra Hearts of Oak for the 2020/2021 Ghana Premier League (GPL) opener at Dormaa on Saturday, but the FA informed the two clubs that the said match has been postponed until further notice, citing medical reasons.
According to the FA, they have been informed that players and technical team members of Hearts of Oak will need further covid-19 tests to ascertain their true status before being allowed to play a game. A statement from the GFA on Friday evening read: “Aduana Stars’ Ghana Premier League Match-day 1 clash against Hearts of Oak has been called off.
This decision was taken after the GFA was informed that Players and Officials of Hearts of Oak will need further tests before playing a match”.
The decision by the FA arrived very late, five days after Aduana Stars had, till the announcement, camped their players with special preparations for what is considered a big game. The Dormaa based club feels that the decision has caused them a serious financial loss and that they deserve compensation from the organizers of the league – the FA.
Evans Oppong, Communications Director for Aduana Stars confirmed this in an exclusive interview with ghanasportspage.com.
“We will petition the FA on the expenses we’ve incurred on this match. We’ve camped our boys for five days for this match and they’ve been in camp till today (Friday). The boys have been in camp since Monday till today for our preparations; our field preparations and other unforeseen expenses we’ve incurred about this match has been easy”, Oppong narrated.
According to him, Aduana Stars have sent a management member of the club to Kumasi, and move from radio stations to TV stations just to promote the match. They have as well crafted promotional jingles which have been played on various radio stations at a cost, and these expenses must not go in vain.
“We sent one of our management members to Kumasi, went to two TV stations and radio stations to promote the match. We’ve also made jingles for all the radio stations to promote the match, so we’ve spent a lot on this match. So the expenses we’ve incurred on this game we will petition the FA and seek for compensation. It is the FA that organizes the League so we will sent the petition to the FA so that whoever has to pay the money to us does it”, he stressed.
On November 9, ghanasportspage.com published a report gathered that about 32 persons had tested positive for covid-19, which puts the league opener against Aduana Stars in serious doubt. Aduana Stars feels the GFA failed to follow this publication and allowed things to come this far and must therefore compensate Aduana Stars.
“The rumour came out first and the FA should have investigated the stories you (ghanasportspage.com) published so that we can know the truth, but the FA failed to take that step, maybe if they’d followed it we wouldn’t have gone to camp, so in this case we will blame the FA for not acting very swiftly when the rumour came out. Hearts of Oak also didn’t help the situation because you know your situation so when the issue came you should be bold enough to let Ghanaians see that this is the situation. So for us it is the FA that organizes the league so we will send our petition to them, outlining our expenses so that they pay us”, he concluded.
