Dormaa-based Aduana Stars are counting on what they have described as a weak defence filed by Accra Hearts of Oak against their demands to the Ghana Football Association(GFA) to declare them winners of their First Capital Plus Premier League clash at the Agyemang Badu Park last month.
Hearts won the match 1-0, but Aduana insist that the Phobians were not qualified to play following their failure to honour the sanctions imposed on them by the Player Status Committee of the GFA.
Following the dismissal of Coach David Duncan and his consequent appeal to the Player Status Committee for justice, the committee ruled that Hearts paid their former coach over GHc86,000 for wrongful dismissal and an additional GHc5,000 to the GFA as a fine within 14 days.
But the Phobians filed for a stay of execution which was deficient of the laid down procedure.
Mr. Albert Commey, CEO of Aduana Stars argued that Hearts’ argument that the regulations did not specify the mode of payment for the fines imposed on them by the Player Status Committee was weak because Hearts have always paid fines to the GFA and on those occasions they knew how to pay them, adding that ignorance of the law was always not an excuse.
“Since our protest, I have received several calls from some Phobians, urging me to drop the matter, especially so when I was once an officer of Hearts, but I’m a professional ensuring that the rules governing the game are maintained”,Commey stated.
Referring to articles 37(17a) of the GFA which stipulates that clubs fined by the football organising body rendered themselves ineligible for matches organised by it if they failed to pay such fines, Commey argued that the best Hearts should have done in that circumstances was to pay the GHc86,000 in trust for Duncan and the GHc5,000 to the GFA and applied for refund when their appeal was upheld.