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Soccer News of Monday, 29 April 2002

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Charles Taylor to Miss Next Three League Matches

Accra Hearts of Oak's playmaker Charles Taylor would miss the fourth to sixth week matches of the on-going premier league following being red carded during the Hearts and Olympic league match played at the Accra Sports Stadium last Sunday.

A release signed by Mr. Kweku Ampim-Darko Deputy General Secretary of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), said Taylor would miss four matches for having been expelled from the game for a violent conduct.

He said Hearts have additionally been fined 200,000 cedis and failure to pay would render Taylor unqualified even after the ban.

Mr. Herbert Addo, head coach of Accra Hearts of Oak, has said the absence of the team's key play-maker in their subsequent league matches is likely to affect the team.

He said the player's absence would automatically affect their style of play since he is very influential in their matches saying he would have to adopt another strategy in subsequent matches.

Mr. Addo explained that Taylor's absence would put pressure on their defenders because of the role he plays, but said he would be using new found striker Awudu Adama to take over that role.

The coach attributed the red card shown to the player to technical

indiscipline saying the player would have to comport himself in the game since the offence was an avoidable one.

On steps taken to ensure discipline of the play, he said he recommended the punishment meted to him so that he would forfeit his one million cedis winning bonus.

Coach Addo said he has served the player with a warning letter for him to be of good behaviour because any recurrence of such an offence would attract stiffer punishment.

He however expressed the hope that in spite of his absence the team would continue to excel "because we have equally good players to take his position".

Charles Taylor was sent off in the 36th minute of Hearts and Olympics league match played at the Accra Sports Stadium for violent conduct.

The red card by referee Mike Amedior of Kumasi makes it the third red card received by Taylor this year..

On Emmanuel Armah, the coach said he is a good defender and he would recommend him for registration "but I have to assess him for a longer time before he is finally registered."

He said he is currently using a series of friendly matches to assess the performance of the players.