The late Christian Atsu will be honoured by having his newly built grass pitch named after him, according to Abdul-Hayye Yartey, the owner of Cheetah FC.
Christian Atsu spent some of his youth career with Cheetah before moving to Portugal to play for FC Porto in the Portuguese top division.
In an interview, Yartey disclosed that he had intended to surprise the player by renaming the field in honour of Atsu, but the former Cheetah player’s passing prevented the plan from coming to fruition.
“I saw how happy he was (when Cheetah unveiled their Astroturf), and he actually granted me an interview when we were commissioning the Astroturf pitch.” I was hoping to surprise him with the grass pitch. Like, call him to come and say, “Hey, Christan, I’ve made a grass pitch and am going to name it after you.” “It’s quite unfortunate he couldn’t wait for that time, but still, we will name the pitch after him,” he said.
Atsu joined Cheetah FC from Gomoa Feyenoord before his departure to Europe in 2009.
During the off-season, he used to come to Cheetah to donate boots and other items to the club.
Cheetah, who have been focusing on academy football, are currently in Ghana’s third-tier league as they hope to progress to the top flight in a few years.