Hearts did not earn $1.7m in Champions League

Maxwell Addo, the treasurer of Accra Hearts of Oak, has denied that the club received a little over $1.7m from the 2000 Champions League campaign as being alleged by some supporters.

He explained that since it was only last year that the Champions League prize money was increased to $1m with the runners-up getting $750,000 what Hearts got, including compensation from FIFA for the abortive World Clubs Championship, comes nowhere near $1.7m. He, however, failed to give the actual figure.

Reacting to state sports bi-weekly Graphic Sports publication on Tuesday, Addo dispelled the general perception that the club is loaded and rather advised people to consider income vis-?-vis the after-effect such incomes have on the club by way of increased demands by players and the added cost of increased rates on recruitment.

“Except 1996, the club has since 1995 participated in the CAF series and that is equally expensive,” he stressed. He gave a breakdown of trips the team embarked upon to the various countries across the length and breadth of Africa from 1995 to 2000 to buttress his claim.

He further explained that participating in the CAF Champions League placed a big burden on the club, especially where they performed so well and won the cup in 2000. “Our anxiety to making a lasting impact on the competition that year added more financial burden on us by way of promise to players, improved camping facilities outside the country, all financed through loans which had to be paid out of what we got,” he emphasized.

While denying also that players of the club were promised $25,000 each, he stated that their share of the CAF money has been paid.

On the issue of the secretariat being put under 24-hour police guard, he pointed out that the step was not to prevent any so-called “impounding”, but a move by management to operate within the law to prevent the other faction which had threatened to attack the secretariat in an attempt to take over the club.

He appealed to all interested parties to lend their strong shoulders to uplift the club rather than resorting to divisive tendencies and insinuations that will plunge the club into deeper water.