Soccer News of Wednesday, 8 May 2002

Source: gna

Okwawu supporters want coach sacked after third loss

Supporters of Okwawu United Football Club are calling for the sack of Philip Boamah who took over the coaching responsibilities of the club at the beginning of the season.

Mr Ernest Apau, a spokesman of the supporters who are organised under "Mountain Three" which is made up mostly of spare parts dealers at Abossey Okai, a suburb of Accra told the GNA on Tuesday that they have lost confidence in the coach who is a debutante in the Ghanaian premier league and that he must be replaced by a more competent coach who will give them results.

He said the spate of poor results the team is recording is a pointer to a misfortune, which awaits the club at the end of the season if the head coach is not fired. Coach Boamah joined Okwawu after being sacked by Nigerian giants, Julius Berger of Lagos, the best financed club in that country with whom he won the Nigerian First Division League in 2000.

The Nkawkaw club, which has temporarily adopted the Accra Sports Stadium this season as their home grounds are on four points from five matches, having won against BA United (1-0) and drawn with Maxbees (0-0). They lost 1-3 to King Faisal in Kumasi, 0-1 to Hearts in a home match and 0-1 to Liberty Professionals.

Mr Apau who is as an executive member of "Mountain Three" said the coach bought players who have raw talents which need to be polished but unfortunately, he is not able to straighten their rough edges to make them challenge for honours in the premiership.

He said for a team to score only two goals in five matches, it means the coach lacks goal-scoring formations and since goals win matches, he must either relinquish his post or be fired to save the club from relegation. Mr Apau castigated the players too for their mediocre performance as he described some of them as colts players who do not have the character and experience to play in the premiership.

He deplored the attitude of Asare Nyarko who was the captain of the day in their match against Liberty for removing his jersey and throwing it on the tartan tracks when he was substituted. Mr Apau accused Kumasi based referee G.A. Zorve of bias against Okwawu and advised the Ghana Referees Association to appoint only competent officials for matches in order to avert another tragedy at stadia.