Kickoff (Cape Town)
13 October 2008
Ghana Football Association chairman Kwesi Nyantekyie has admitted the organisation of Ghana's World Cup qualifier against Lesotho in Sekondi was shambolic but insists that that will not stop the football association from rotating Black Stars games.
The Western Regional city hosted the Black Stars for the first time in an over-crowded Essipong Stadium. The build-up to the game was chaotic with ticketing arrangements poor and fans forcing two gates opened to gain free entrance.
The result was a stadium over flowing with many fans occupying walkways in the stands and a few allowed into the inner perimeter to ease the over-crowding.
The Sekondi stadium holds 20,000 fans, half the capacity of the stadiums in Accra and Kumasi, but Nyantekyie insists the GFA will take the Black Stars back to the Essipong.
"There were so many security personnel at the stadium but it appeared to me there were problems. This was the first time the Black Stars or any of the national teams were playing a game here and it appears the organisers were overwhelmed about it. It may have accounted for the lapses," Nyantekyie told KickOffGhana.com.
"But those reasons are not good enough to stop bringing games here because if you look at the positives and negatives, the positives outweigh the negatives. We should consider the negatives as challenges and turn them into strength so next time we can play a game in Sekondi in a more orderly fashion.
"The facilities were overstretched. It behooves the security men to control the entrance. During the Nations Cup we controlled crowd, here we could not. The security that was put in place to control the crowd did not perform to expectation.
"But Sekondi will continue to get games. We want to rotate games and galvanise support for the various national teams. The problems that occurred should help us get better but you can never overlook the support the Sekondi fans provided the Black Stars.
"There fans were was fantastic, it was overwhelming, and the support overwhelming."
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