Champions League: Hearts into next stage

Accra Hearts of Oak have gained entry into the next stage of this year?s Champions League without kicking a ball.

Their opponents,Wallidan, who won the Gambia league, have suddenly pulled out of the competition only 10 days before their first leg tie in Banjul.

Hearts were scheduled to travel to the Gambian capital this weekend for the first leg on February 19, with the second leg slated for Obuasi two weeks later.

Acccording to the Gambian Football Association who communicated this to the FA, Wallidan failed to assign reasons for their late withdrawal from the competition.

By this development both the first and second leg matches have been cancelled leaving Hearts with an automatic qualification to the 1/16th stage of the competition.

Hearts incidentally gained a bye when the first draw was made, but this particular dispensation comes as a badly needed reprieve from a whooping ?500 million expected expenditure for the Gambia trip.

Wallidan?s unexpected decision is becoming a trademark as they chickened out of a similar tie against Kumasi Asante Kotoko in the last edition of the competition.

Meanwhile, Kumasi Asante Kotoko have plunged into serious camping in readiness for their Champions League tie with Cameroun?s Aigle de Dschang.

According to a management member, Mr Javis Peprah, the team will leave Accra on Wednesday for Yaounde for the match.

Last Wednesday the team left Kumasi for Obuasi to begin camping in what coach E. K. Afranie has described as the last leg of preparations against the Camerounians.

Apart from Issa Ahmed and Yusif Alhassan Chibsah who are currently not with the club, Afranie has the full compliment of his team, save the delay in the signing of Liberty star striker, Mark Adu Amofa. Ahmed has signed a deal with a Danish club,while Chibsah is in South Africa on trials.