How Hearts of Oak versus Great Olympics brought musicians, politicians and diplomats together
Great Olympics drew with Hearts of Oak
• Hearts of Oak and Olympics served entertaining football on Sunday night at the Accra Sports Stadium
Read full article• Among the public figures who watched the game were Kwame A Plus, Koku Anyidoho, Congolese Ambassador, UK High Commissioner to Ghana, among others
• The game ended 1-1
Politics, entertainment, boxing and diplomacy converged at the Accra Sports Stadium on Sunday evening as Accra Great Olympics and Accra Hearts of Oak reminded Ghanaian football lovers of the level of soccer talent in the country.
At the VIP stand of the stadium was Kwame A Plus, who represented the entertainment industry, Koku Anyidoho and Mustapha Hameed from the political class, Ike Bazooka Quartey from boxing and the United Kingdom and Indian High Commissioners, as well as the Congolese Ambassador to Ghana who had one of his nationals playing for Hearts of Oak.
These public figures were among thousands of football lovers who were treated with a magnificent meal of football from Accra Great Olympics and Hearts of Oak.
The game which has been described as the match of the season by some soccer pundits saw Hearts of Oak’s Emmanuel Nettey unleashing a thunderbolt to the top right corner of the Olympics goal-post to get the Phobians the lead.
Hearts had several opportunities to double the lead but fluffed them and were made to pay for their misses as Great Olympics’ Abbey Quaye thumped home a header after Raddy Ovouka, the Congolese left back of Hearts of Oak committed an unusual error.
Hearts of Oak will be made to rue their stars as a powerful drive from midfielder Isaac Mensah which beat the Great Olympics goalie and ricocheted off the crossbar was adjudged not to be a goal. Replay, however, shows that the ball crossed the line and Hearts deserved a goal which would have seen them maintain their point-gap at the top of the GPL table.
This has led to Hearts of Oak coach, Samuel Boadu appealing to the FA to procure the services of goal-line technology as done in major leagues across the world.
"It's a good game, Olympics did well. We got a lot of chances but we couldn't score but the linesman disallowed Isaac Mensah's goal and I think it crossed the line so is a clear goal but I don't want to talk about officiating," he told StarTimes in a post-match interview.
"If that goal was awarded, the situation could have been different. I think the introduction of the goal-line technology can help."
