Soccer News of Sunday, 21 September 2003

Source: GNA

Deelorm fail to turn up against Oscar

Kpando, (V/R) - GNA - Deelorm Stars of Akwatia failed to turn up for their Division One League match at Kpando on Saturday against Oscar F/C without any notification to the home team about their absence. Players of Oscar F/C arrived the stadium at 1:30 p.m. and trotted onto the field thirty minutes later to warm up without any sign of their opponents.

Not sure of the arrival of Deelorm Stars, the National Sports Council officials led by Mr Christian Doe, the District Sports Development Officer refused to sell tickets to spectators at the gates until the visitors arrived to avoid any embarrassment.

When it was match time, Accra based referee Joseph Amenya and his assistants Philip Atsinyo and David Helegbe inspected the cards of Oscar players while they awaited the arrival of the Akwatia boys. At 4:30 p.m. the referee blew off the match, as there was no information about the whereabouts of Deelorm Stars.

The fourth referee, Francis Amenyogbeli told the GNA Sports that they had waited for well over three hours for the Akwatia team for the pre match meeting but they failed to turn up and there was no communication from them explaining their absence.

Soccer loving fans who had converged at the stadium went home disappointed while players of Oscar jubilated and demanded winning bonuses from their management.

Coach Ken Boatchway of Oscar said he was disappointed their opponents failed to turn up as he had mapped out strategies to avenge the only defeat he suffered during the first round of the league. He said the Ghana Football Association should penalize teams which fail to honour matches severely because some of them do so to reduce the goal deficit against them adding, "we wanted to beat them by six goals to nil."