Hearts were outclassed and easily dispatched by the Miners, in what was their first game at their adopted home ground in Cape Coast.

The Phobians looked flat and disjointed for large periods of the game and were lucky not to have conceded more goals.

Wellington has however blamed his side’s humbling defeat at the hands of the Obuasi based side on individual errors.

“The tactics were not the problem, it was mistakes. Tactically we were better than AshGold on the field,” he said.

“The hardly attacked us as we kept them at bay for most parts of the game. They scored the goals from the few attacks the made; we didn’t lose because of bad tactics.”

Hearts are now second from bottom with just a point from their opening two games.

By: Daniel Koranteng/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The match was Liberty new coach, Reginald Asante’s first in charge of the team but not even his presence could save them from a difficult afternoon.

Former Black Starlets players, Aminu Mohammed and Richard Danso got the first two goals of the match with Charles Boateng getting the third after he came on as a sub. Bright Andoh got the consolation for Liberty in injury time.

In Kumasi, Asante Kotoko went two games unbeaten in the season with a 1-0 win over Inter Allies. Obed Owusu found the net in the second half but the Reds needed Felix Annan several times to keep Allies from getting the equaliser.

The clash of the new boys between Karela FC and Techiman Eleven Wonders ended in a 1-1 draw. William Opoku Mensah scored for Karela while Abdul Wahab scored for Wonders.

Defending champions, Aduana Stars, got their season going with a goalless draw at Elmina Sharks. Despite arriving in Ghana on Friday from their CAF Champions League exertions, Aduana managed to play a large part of game on the front foot but they could not find the victory.

Bechem United enjoyed a 2-0 home win over Medeama thanks to strikes from Seth Sowah and Emmanuel Owusu.

Berekum Chelsea needed Stephen Amankona to score with the kick of the match to get them a 1-1 home draw with Dreams FC.

The visitors had scored through Samuel Pimpong in the second half and looked set for a victory that would have snapped Berekum Chelsea’s home run of 22 matches unbeaten but Amankona pushed that run to 23 matches without a loss with his goal.

Wa All Stars and Ebusua Dwarfs played out a goalless draw at Wa.

On Saturday, AshGold went to the top of the league table with a 3-1 win over Hearts of Oak at Cape Coast.

GHPL Week 2 results:

Hearts 1-3 AshGold

Kotoko 1-0 Inter Allies

Wa All Stars 0-0 Ebusua Dwarfs

Berekum Chelsea 1-1 Dreams FC

Bechem United 2-0 Medeama

Liberty 1-3 WAFA

Elmina Sharks 0-0 Aduana Stars

Karela 1-1 Eleven Wonders

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By: Citi Sports

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The 2018 season kicked off over the weekend after some legal challenges and Kwesi Nyantakyi believes the league’s popularity was on display by virtue of the conversations on social media.

He also believes the influx of more private owners is ample proof of the league’s quality.

“The social media trends all had the Ghana Premier League in top place over the weekend and it demonstrated the level of interest among Ghanaians.”

“This is contrary to opinions that the league is dead, it is in coma and all kinds of negative comments,” he said in a media interaction at the GFA headquarters on Monday.

He went on: “If the league is dead, why Dr. Ndoum invest to upgrade in facilities in Elmina and why will Dr. Issahaku invest in a Division One team (Tamale City FC)?

The start of the league was good and the attendance in Tema (at the Inter Allies vs Bechem United match) was impressive. The fans were starved of the league by the court cases.”

Nyantakyi went on to explain that the late start of the league would push the FA to play matches during weekdays to make up for the time lost due to the court cases with Great Olympics.

He added that the FA may have to discuss the possibility of getting a special arrangement from FIFA that would allow the league to run during the World Cup.

FIFA has indicated that all leagues around the world would have to end by May to make way for preparations for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

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By: Nathan Quao/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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In presenting their case, Olympics asked for an extension of the injunction period to one month within which the GFA would hear their protest against Elmina Sharks, but that has now been dismissed.

[contextly_sidebar id=”MF4jBC3xQ53kcKiynaDNcrmJoDoEcSeX”]The court said that it had no jurisdiction to rule on the matter as it was an internal matter which should be determined by the Ghana Football Association, GFA.

Great Olympics petitioned the GFA to allow them bring a protest against Elmina Sharks for fielding an unqualified player despite the expiration of the mandatory 72 hours to do so. But the petition was dismissed, forcing Olympics to head to court to seek redress.

Olympics wanted the court to force the GFA to accept their petition which would result in Elmina Sharks being docked points, essentially condemning them to relegation while Olympics are reinstated in their stead.

The GFA and Olympics tried an out of court settlement of the matter, but two meetings between the two parties failed to resolve the impasse.

Olympics have twice brought injunctions against the start of the league, which was originally scheduled to start on the weekend of February 10.

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By: Citi Sports/Ghana

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The league campaign is expected to run until August 5, and will be preceded by a Super Cup clash between league champions Aduana Stars and MTN FA Cup holders Kumasi Asante Kotoko on January 27.

The GFA in their stakeholder’s summit last year proposed a possible restructuring of the league to sync with the European calendar, and the newly announced calendar has seen that proposal come into fruition, as the 2018/2019 Ghana Premier League season will start in November and end in May 2019.

Aduana clinched the second league title in their history last season beating off close competition from WAFA and Hearts to finish with a healthy six-point gap.

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Credit:Citi Sports

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“I have been Minister for Sports before, and it was during my time that Ghana qualified for the World Cup for the first time.

“One of the first things I did was to invite the match officials to my office, because the league becomes important when people see fairness.

“You destroy the league of the country when people know that matches are being fixed. Corruption got so deep in football after 2010 that Ghanaians stopped being interested in the local league,” he said.

He also stressed the importance of cleaning up the league system in order to have a positive reflection on the Black Stars.

“Corruption in the officiating of Ghana Premier League matches has had a very negative effect on our football, to the extent that local players hardly feature in the Black Stars call-ups these days.

“That is certainly not the best, as we used to get about half of the Black Stars from the local league, with most of them coming from Hearts, Kotoko, Olympics, Eleven Wise and a few others. And these players were very competitive and conquered Africa.

“These teams also conquered Africa in their own right, but how are our teams doing in Africa these days? The winner of our league cannot even make it through the first round of the CAF competition.

“We must make sure that those who are guilty of these corrupt offences are found out and punished accordingly.”

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By: Daniel Koranteng/citimfmonline.com/Ghana

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‪The Former Hearts of Oak coach is set to arrive in time for the club’s pre-season ahead of the 2017/18 campaign.

The President of Inter Allies FC, Rabeh EL- Eter, said after the confirmation that, “we are glad to have Kenichi as our Head Coach for the coming season.”

Kenichi Yatsuhasi has huge knowledge of the terrain having coached in the Ghana Premier League with Hearts of Oak, where he was known for his exciting brand of football.

‪He also worked with Nigerian Premier League side FC Ifeanyi Ubah in 2016 and Cambodian C-League club Tiger FC in 2017.

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By: Daniel Koranteng/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Aduana defeated Brong Ahafo Regional rivals Berekum Chelsea in a special coronation match at the Nana Agyemang Badu 11 Park in Dormaa on Sunday.

GFA Vice President George Afriyie led officials, including PLB Chairman Ashford Tettey-Oku to present the winners medals and the glittering premier league trophy to players and officials of the champions respectively.

Aduana were also presented with a cheque for $30,000 US Dollars, being prize money for winning the 2016/2017 Ghana Premier.

The atmosphere inside the stadium was joyous throughout the day, with traditional rulers in the Dormaa Traditional Area present, including the Omanhene, Nana Agyemang Badu 11.

After receiving the trophy, the players of Aduana symbolically presented the trophy to Nana Agyemang Badu 11, who is also the the Life Patron of the club.

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Source: Ghanafa.org

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Last week, I watched in amazement as a Manchester United fan passionately cheered and prayed that Manchester City forward Gabriel Jesus would score a hattrick. In my confusion, I asked why a United fan would so badly want a City player to succeed. “He’s in my fantasy team,” he said.

That’s the power of digitalization. Several thousands of miles away, and this fan is not only connected to his favorite club, but all of his other favorite players in the English Premier League through the Fantasy League app.

All around the world, digital media is changing the sports experience and transforming the sporting landscape. Sadly, the Ghana Premier League has failed spectacularly to take advantage of this new media to reach new audience.

According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), there are nearly ten million internet users in Ghana as at June 2017. In other words, a whopping 34.7% of Ghana’s population uses the internet on a daily basis. Of this number, four million of them are on Facebook alone– representing 14%.

With attendance to Ghana premier league matches continuously on the decline, I don’t see the sense in the GPL’s failure to embrace and invest in reaching the digital audience. Globally, with the proliferation of HDTVs, smartphones and social media, attendance to stadia is on the decline. This has forced so many leagues across the world to evolve and embrace new forms of marketing their products to the public.

To lure fans to a game against the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, the Phoenix Suns offered a money-back guarantee on tickets, promising that fans could get a refund if they weren’t satisfied with the team’s performance.

The EPL is the most popular league in the world but that has not stopped them from actively involved in social media for example. Every day, the EPL’s twitter handle is flooded with tweets and short catchy videos – whether it’s celebrating an old hero of the league or merely reminding followers of a particular day in the history of the league – the premier league’s sixteen million followers on twitter are staying closer to their favorite league.

The GPL only created a twitter handle last year with just over 11,000 followers. But don’t get your hopes high because that twitter handle is as quiescent as an employees’ Whatsapp group with the CEO in it. The last tweet was over 6 days ago at the time of writing. With so many twists and turns heading to the final round of matches in the Ghana Premier League, followers of that handle were deserted and left in total darkness.

The Ghana Premier League’s Facebook account is largely inactive with their last post to their 13,000 followers coming way back in August. In comparison, their compatriots in Nigeria – League Management of Nigeria – managers of the Nigerian Professional League, has over 70,000 followers on twitter and a further 38,000 likes on Facebook.

The Nigeria premier league ended in September, just before the start of the WAFU 2017 tournament. But check their handle, and you’d find a tweet few hours ago on the Nigeria Professional League. Social Media is a full-time job for leagues the world over. The Ghana premier league hasn’t even taken it seriously enough to be considered a part time job to them.

Apart from the obvious benefits of reaching a much younger and vibrant audience with social media, building a huge following on that platform has the potential to increase the league’s commercial value.

In 2014 for example, FC Barcelona engaged sports marketing agency IMG to examine what value social media adds to its shirt sponsorship rights.

Over one weekend, there were 61 million web impressions of the Qatar Foundation’s sponsorship of the club’s shirts, causing Barcelona to renegotiate their deal with the Foundation.

During the WAFU 2017 tournament, the Ghana Football Association’s communications department was heavily involved in developing a social media strategy for the tournament. People were hired specifically for that purpose and they executed WAFU’s tournament coverage on social media excellently. So it’s not an issue of personnel; it’s one of a disinterest, and that’s destroying our league.

Another entity that has surprisingly not taken digital and social media seriously is the media sponsor of the GPL – StarTimes Ghana. All around the world, sponsors have played a massive role in the promotion of competitions they sponsor with short video previews, interviews, reactions posted on social media so fans can access on the go.

StarTimes Ghana has yet to embrace this. Their twitter handle has 951 followers, and they have only tweeted 925 times with their last tweet coming six days ago. And while they post short video previews to the entertainment content on their channels, same is not done for the GPL. With three million followers on Facebook, the potential reach of anything on Startimes’ Facebook is enormous. Unfortunately, they have not invested same energy into the promotion of the Ghana Premier League.

StarTimes should be running short quizzes, predictions, posting short interviews, conducting polls and asking fans to vote for favorite goals, plays etc. The winner of these short competitions could be taken along with the TV crew to experience how coverage of a game is done. It’s a small gesture that would stay with that fan forever. This is how to build loyalty.

In the just ended season, a group of friends from GHPLLIVE created a Ghana Premier League fantasy league. It was a simple process of posting fixtures two days before every match day and asking people to predict scores of each match in the comment section, with 4 points allocated for a perfect score and 1 mark for correct prediction.

It started with just 10 people in the first week, and by week five, they had to cut the numbers. The interest this generated was beyond imagination. It forced people to pay attention to the league and the discussion that followed each match week in the comment section of this fantasy prediction was ridiculous.

With a great percentage of Ghanaians on social media between the ages of 15 and 45, developing a digital media strategy that goes beyond just sending out tweets and Facebook posts, could introduce the league to a new range of audience that has fast slipped away. And just then, maybe, we could get them to love our league again.
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By: Fentuo Tahiru/ [email protected]/ The writer is a Sports Journalist at Citi FM.

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Banku was finally ‘eaten’

After 27 bouts, the unbeaten run held by Ghana’s most popular boxer in modern times, Braimah Kamoko aka Bukom Banku, was torn apart in rather spectacular fashion on Saturday at the Bukom Boxing Arena.

He came up against rival, Bastie Samir, in a much-hyped “Make Or Break” bout and truly, it was made for Bastie and it broke for Banku but it was not without incident. How could it have made headlines if it was all smooth?

First, there was a hold up for close to 20 minutes due to disagreements over the size and mass of Bastie’s gloves and I found it very distasteful since the bout was live on SuperSport and by extension, the whole of Africa.

But eventually, the bell went and it was seven rounds of great action. Banku won the first two rounds and perhaps, it was because he was looking to end it quickly and make good on the promise of a knockout.

That did not happen and Bastie gathered himself and boxed on the front foot. His strengths and skills from years of boxing at an amateur level (including the 2008 Olympic Games where he captained Ghana’s boxing team) began to show and he landed great combinations to win the 3rd, 4th and 7th rounds when he finally sent Banku down to the canvas and leave fans either stunned or standing for joy.

Takeways? Yes. It seems Banku’s fall has excited a lot of people. The trash talking and the overt disrespect towards Bastie seems to have either rubbed people the wrong way or they just wanted to see a good contest and they got one for sure.

The other point for me is the Bastie Samir’s exhibition on the day. He proved that he could really slug it out and that he had the ability to succeed but I wonder if it not too late for that. I do not know if he is considering making a push for bigger recognition but with good management and his own application, a good try will be worth his time.

The bout goes into the top ranks of my favourite boxing bouts but as for Bukom Banku, the trolls will continue. He needs to take them on the chin.

The teams in red

On Saturday’s installment of the Premier League which was live on Citi 97.3 FM, I saw a sickening performance from Man United at Huddersfield and it sent my day into a dark spiral. There was no attitude, no guts and certainly, no urgency leading to a 2-1 loss and to add to that, my taps at home ere left unclosed and so, I was called home to meet a flood.

But the water could not cool the rage in my mind as I reflected on Juan Mata’s silly error of losing a pass and failing to stop Aaron Mooy from going on a run that led to Huddersfield’s first goal.

I was even angrier at Victor Lindelof at his school-boy decision not to clear a long ball which set up Huddersfield’s second goal.

I think Jose Mourinho said it well when he underlined the fact that a loss to a team which fared better on attitude was a bad loss. I side totally with him. I would rather lose to a super team than one which ran more and showed more willingness.

I hope the manager will take hard decisions to punish the unserious players. Plus, we do need players back from injury. The team will look, feel and play better, I believe.

But then, I looked at Liverpool and I kept shaking my head. They gave four goals to Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley. Dejan Lovren gave two away, Joel Matip handed one over and the entire defensive group gave the fourth away in the second half after a free kick.

It is now reaching laughable levels when Liverpool’s defence is mentioned and Jurgen Klopp has to do something now. The odd occurrence will be glossed over and not a lot of sleep will be lost. They will be fixed quickly because it is out of character. A quick jolt to the system will put things right.

But when a problem keeps showing its head very often after only 9 rounds of a 38-game league season, then the manager must wake himself up first, see the reality and work on his charges until they are immune to sleep.

Until Liverpool do that, a lot more of the comedy shows will be aired for the world to see.

Spurs, though, were brilliant. Knowing when to hold their shape and when to break forward accentuated their readiness for the match and it further underlined their willingness to adapt and succeed.

And when they were breached, Hugo Lloris was magnificent.

Arsenal get high marks for their classy away victory at Everton. Even after conceding a goal from Wayne Rooney, their old enemy, they never looked in danger.

They pulled it even through Nacho Monreal and it was an onward march towards the three points from that point.

Ozil and Sanchez reprised their roles from seasons past with some great passing and movement while Lacazette and Ramsey played with energy and great tempo.

The future is unclear when Sanchez and Ozil are mentioned but while the Gunners have them in their hands, they need to get the best from their most creative sources.

Bye bye to Olympics and Tema Youth

It was never in doubt and on Sunday, what was known was confirmed. Great Olympics performed their usual routine of getting themselves relegated a season after promotion.

The stumbles were too many at the start of the season and the confusion involving Godwin Attram and Tom Strand in the head coach’s role rocked the boat too strongly.

Attram tried to set things right but that was not to be.

However, Tema Youth started well but they went on a skid and even when they knew the value of beating Elmina Sharks at home in Week 28, they failed woefully.

The departure of Joseph Paintsil to Hungary affected them but a better collective effort was needed. Their coach, Edward Odoom, complained of poor officiating a few times but he should have built his team to withstand the tough nature of the league.

Thumbs up to the survivors: Bechem United, Berekum Chelsea, Inter Allies, Liberty Professionals and Elmina Sharks. Some took advantage of their final home games and others were tough on their travels.

However, the people at Bechem United should be strongly reprimanded for the shenanigans surrounding the inability to broadcast the match live. They claim a truck blocked the entrance of the stadium and that prevented the Startimes television crew from getting in to beam the match.

Are there no towing services in Bechem? Are there no mechanics? Fans of the team team vowed to prevent the game from aired live and the episode clearly shows that they delivered on the promise.

Will we see any punishment? Aduana Stars essentially walked away unscathed when their fans went down the same  road so Bechem United could walk as well and we say we want corporate bodies to sponsor the league? I do not think we are serious about that objective.

Congrats to AshGold’s Hans Kwofie for winning the top scorer’s award. He scored four times against Aduana Stars to bag 17 goals and beat Stephen Sarfo who was leading the chart with 15 goals heading into the final round of matches.

That’s it folks!!!

Hit me up on Twitter @nathan_quao

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