Ghanaian football legend Tony Yeboah
Former Asante Kotoko player and a member of the 1992 Africa Cup of Nations team, Frimpong Manso, has revealed that Tony Yeboah’s quest to develop talents for the country hit a snag due to bad officiating.
According to him, the former Yegoala FC owner interest in Ghana football died five years ago and is of the view nothing can resurrect it anymore.
Manso, who was a close a friend to Tony in an interview said, “I’m saying this because I know him very well and since he abandoned the project midstream, he has been involved in golf and does not want to have anything to do with Ghana football anymore,” he added.
Frimpong Manso, who started his football career with Tony Yeboah in Kumasi-based Neoplan Stars four decades ago before joining Kumasi Cornerstone and Okwahu United respectively, said Yeboah took the decision to end his romance with football based on biased officiating against the club they formed about a decade ago.
“His main concern was about biased officiating in Ghana football over the years. He told me that some referees came to him directly to demand money to officiate in his favour during our project, and when he refused, they joined hands to bring his club down. “At a point in time, he lost his temper and said he was no more interested to continue with the club. I, therefore, doubt that he would involve himself even in football administration, let alone start another project,” he noted.
“We initiated the project from the colts level with the sole ambition of supporting the development of talented youth with skills in football. However, when we got to Division One, we started experiencing biased officiating from referees who handled our matches, both home and away.
“The situation was very irritating because some referees were bold enough to go to Tony to demand money from him to officiate in our favour during competitive matches which was against the principles of Tony.”
He stressed that, “it was at this stage that Tony became very infuriated by the behaviour of the referees, so he told me that he could not cope with the biased officiating against his club anymore. That is how he ended the project we spent so much time and resources to establish.”
Frimpong Manso said based on the irreversible decision taken by Yeboah, the club was sold to Prof. Joseph Albert Quarm, who is now a Member of Parliament for Manso Nkwanta Constituency in the Ashanti Region
