Fans attack and hold Nsoatreman FC hostage
Battle over GPL promotion in DOL Zone 1
The General Secretary of the Ghana Football Association, Prosper Harrison Addo has explained how the attack on Tamale City FC compelled their fans to launch a reprisal attack on Nsoatreman FC.
The struggle for promotion to the Ghana Premier League witnessed violent clashes on two clubs over the weekend.
Tamale City FC who are league leaders in the Division One League Zone 1 were attacked after their 1-1 Baffour Academy in the Bono Region.
Second-placed Nsoatreman FC also from the Bono Region had also travelled to take on Steadfast FC at the Aliu Mahama Stadium in Tamale were also violently attacked by some unknown men.
However, according to the GFA General Secretary, videos and pictures on the attack on Tamale City FC in Bono which circulated on media platforms agitated their fans back home to also attack Nsoatreman FC team in Tamale.
“It’s quite unfortunate, whiles you are trying to coil the situation, there were also people who didn’t help. They were sending information to and from, so it agitated people and increased the problem. But we had to work with the security agencies to ensure that Tamale City FC is taken to the police taken,” Prosper Harrison Addo told GhanaWeb.
“Because videos and pictures were circulating to the other side, they also held Nsoatreman at Tamale and said that until Tamale City FC is safe, they will also not release them,” he said.
According to the GFA General Secretary, he had to call the fans of Tamale City FC and begged them to free the Nsoatreman FC team.
“At one point the match commissioner had to put me on loud speaker to talk to fans of the team gathered and beg them that Tamale City would be safe and we are working with the security agencies and so they should let them go. Steadfast had to take them in their bus,” he stated.
The incident happened on the eve of the May 9 disaster which claimed 127 lives of Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko fans who had gone to the Accra Sports Stadium to witness the match 21 years ago.
