Hearts, Kotoko agree to pay for Baba Yara destroyed seats - NSA boss

Director General of the National Sports Authority Mr. Majeed Bawa says Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko have agreed to pay for the seats that were destroyed by fans in their Super two friendly.

Two Hundred and seventy five seats were destroyed after Hearts lost 2-0 to Kotoko early this month.

According to Mr. Bawa, the top hierarchy of both sides have agreed to pay for the destroyed properties and he also added strict rules will have to be followed in other to use national properties henceforth.

“After the supporters destroyed the seats at the (Baba Yara) stadium, I spoke to the two teams (Asante Kotoko and Hearts of Oak) i.e. the organizers that they were going to be surcharged, they were going to pay for the destroyed seats.

“We counted them and they were 275 seats and they agreed to pay with some reservations because they thought that the number of seats that were destroyed could not amount to 275,” Director General of the National Authority Sports Authority said in an interview on Kwesé Free Sports afternoon show, Prime Sports.

“Hearts sent their local representatives in Kumasi to count the seats and they realized that we gave them the correct figure. We wrote to the two teams after we asked a company to quantify the cost and we were told GHS 38,500. We gave a covering letter to the Clubs and Hearts of Oak led by its CEO (Mark Noonan) met us to deliberate on the letter and I told them they must pay for the damage.” He added.

“I have told them no match will be played on any of facilities without an agreement be it: GHALCA organized match, friendly match or Normalization Committee match. Who ever is organizing a match must have an agreement with us on how to replace things that will be destroyed during a match.

“Asante Kotoko signed an agreement with us for their game against Ashanti Gold committing that if anything is destroyed, they will take responsibility of replacing them.

“GHALCA delegation came to request for the facilities because they have support from StarTimes to organize matches for clubs, I told them we can allow you to use them but you’ll be responsible for the organization so we have to have an agreement with you. If anything destroyed anywhere, we know GHALCA and not the teams that are involved.

“Now we are not looking at the participating teams but the organizers and that is the reason why we asked the two teams to pay.” He stated.