Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in December last year, which has sent football activities into forced suspension, football clubs in Ghana and across the world have suffered several financial set backs and Ghana’s Accra Hearts of Oak has emerged one of the most affected clubs.
Managing Director of the club, Frederick Moore has revealed how the outbreak of the pandemic has taken a severe impact on the clubs finances, causing them to lose at least “two-thirds” of their projected revenue for the 2019/2020 football season.
Due to the high rate of infections of the virus in the country, all football activities have been suspended since 16 March this year, following the state’s imposition of bans on all social and or public gatherings. With no football matches going on in the country, clubs have incurred financial loses, forcing clubs like Ashantigold Sporting Club and Asante Kotoko Sporting club to implement a 20% and 30% pay cut policies respectively for players and technical staff to ease financial burden. Accra Hearts of Oak on the other hand has not moved to introduce a pay cut policy and Frederick Moore has revealed how the COVID-19 has lowered the clubs internally generated funds, causing them to lose colossal sums of revenue projection for the year.
““We’ve lost about two-thirds of the revenue projection we made for this football season and it’s quite a scare”, he told Happy FM Sports programme in Accra.
He further stated, that football clubs in Ghana cannot survive solely with their internally generated funds but will need a governmental support to cushion them up.
““For Ghana football to really do well and compete internationally, we need support from corporate Ghana and the government”, he appealed.
