Small clubs should be grateful to "home team take all"

Small clubs in the Star Premier League have been urged to be grateful to the two big clubs, Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko for accepting the 'home team take all' policy.

Mr Kwame Ntow-Faiko, Accra representative of Brong Ahafo (BA) United told the GNA Sports that the big clubs have been very benevolent in allowing the passage of such a policy as it presents the smaller clubs an opportunity to make something substantial from the gate as compared to the former system.

He said, what the small clubs should do is to look for ways to entice more fans to watch their matches as the bigger ones like Kotoko have been advertising their matches on television instead of trying to fight a system that is rather in their favour.

"When B.A United comes to Accra, everybody knows that almost all the supporters who enter the stadium are mostly Hearts supporters. So what justifications have we to demand a part of gate proceeds since we know the supporters were not ours? "But when Hearts come to Sunyani, they would bring along a large travelling support, to the extent that sometimes, they outnumber the home support but they have gone ahead to agree to go home empty handed and for that the smaller clubs should be grateful."

He said formally, most of the smaller clubs were not making anything substantial at the gate but since the introduction of the policy, BA United is able to net to the tune of 15 or 16 million cedis when they play against Hearts and Kotoko, far in excess of what they made formally in similar matches both at home and away combined.

Mr Ntow-Faiko said the impression being created that because the big clubs use bigger government owned stadiums hence make money at their expense is erroneous since other clubs like King Faisal and Liberty Professionals use the same facilities and yet do not gross a fraction of what they do.

He said since 1961that B A United has been in and out of the premiership, it has not been able take home anything substantial from the Accra Sports Stadium league matches. He cited examples of matches they played against Olympics and Liberty in the 2000 league during which they were given 31,000 and 17000 as their share of the gate.

Mr Ntow-Faiko said the highest revenue BA made was against Hearts but he was not specific on the figure, adding that it was not more than four million cedis but with this system that home teams take everything, vigilance at the gates has also been stepped up and that is another plus for the system.