Abi Haitem, the team manager for San Pedro has accused the officials of Kumasi Asante Kotoko of influencing the referee, Eugene Nkosinathi Mdluli to call of the game yesterday.
The second half of the game could not come on due to a torrential rainfall but the San Pedro players and the officials felt the game could have been played.
Haitem in an interview on Kumasi FM said they and the Match Commissioner wanted the game to continue since what happened was not a ‘natural disaster’ but the referee was ‘intimidated’ by the officials of Kotoko to call off the game.
“This is not a natural disaster; the game should have continued but rather the pitch is not good. We together with the match commissioner and the referee wanted the game to continue but were intimidated and influenced by officials of Asante Kotoko.”
“At a point, I witnessed the referee was beaten by some fans of Asante Kotoko. We were kept at the dressing room for almost 40minutes with no one communicating to us. Kotoko cannot intimidate us because our team is owned by a Tunisian and we ruled CAF. We will officially complain to CAF with the happenings of incidents at the stadium.”
After the end of the second part of the game, Kotoko won by a goal to nil.
by: Nana Asabere
