Soccer News of Monday, 17 March 2003

Source: GNA Sports

Olympics To Boycott Top Four

Dejected Accra Great Olympics, who lost in a bizarre manner against Kumasi Asante Kotoko has threatened to boycott the on going LG top four competition.

The decision was arrived at after their game against Asante Kotoko at the Accra Sports Stadium in which they lost 2-1. Frank Davis a management member of the club told GNA Sports exclusively that his team was not prepared to continue with the competition due to what they perceive as a calculated bias officiating against the wonder club.

The management member argued that there is a glaring designed intention to favour some teams in the competition though all the participating teams are vying for the same trophy. He said if the kind of officiating that was handed out to them was what the men of the knight of the whistle have to offer Ghana football, then Ghana football would be the loser at the end of the day. On what could compel the club to rescind its decision, he said nothing would compel the wonder club to have a re-entry into the competition which only seeks to favour selected clubs.

He said the kind of protection being offered the big clubs is the reason why the supposedly big teams are unable to perform whenever they play in Africa. He called on the media to lead the crusade against the bias officiating for some big clubs, notably, Hearts and Kotoko. In a related development, fans of the depleted team have imperilled to beat up the players and management of the club should they dare continue the competition. They have called on Olympics not to have any thing to do with the competition and rather concentrate on pre season training.

An outrageous decision by referee JBK Akeosu from Hohoe deep into injury time to ignore a penalty when a Kotoko defender handled the ball the vital area left Kotoko off the hook to beat Olympics 2-1 in a dramatic late 94th minute goal at the Accra Sport Stadium on Sunday. Referee Akoesu's performance, an indictment on officiating in the country, left a sour taste in the mouth of both groups of supporters resulting in players and officials of Olympics charging on him after the final whistle. But for the timely intervention of the police, a nasty incident would have occurred.