Ex-Minister to pay $30,000 or spend three years in jail

Mr. Ato Kwame Ahwoi, a former Minister of State and now Chairman of the Board of Directors of Accra Hearts of Oak Limited Liability Company, has being ask to pay 30,000 dollars for contempt of court in connection with Eugene Addo's transfer.

Mr. Ahwoi, who was giving evidence before the player transfer Commission of Inquiry, said he is to pay the money by Wednesday, September one or go to jail for three months. Presenting files on 14 players his administration transferred outside the country in 1995, Mr. Ahwoi said Addo was in the process of being transferred to a second division club in Germany for an agreed fee of 50,000 dollars. He said an Accra high court's stay of execution prevented the club from making any transfer because the club was not properly constituted to be a limited liability company.

Mr. Ahwoi said the club felt the player was not transferred because he was still on the pay roll of Hearts adding that the foreign club had then deposited close to 30,000 dollars, which even meant that the agreement was not finalized. "But this shows the country in which we are living", he said, apparently referring to the court action.

Supporters loyal to the present administration, the Limited Liability Company and Hearts of Oaks sporting Club, led by the then Secretary to the Board Mr. Bright Akwetey, filled the Commission to capacity. Mr. Ahwoi was able to submit files on each player with detailed information on all the 14 players transferred by the club. Prominent among them were Emmanuel Armah, Eugene Addo and Stephen Appiah.

Reacting to Armah's appeal to the Commission last Wednesday to help him retrieve 16,500 dollars from Hearts, Mr. Ahwoi said somewhere in 1995, his administration received a letter from the Romania club intimating some unusual behaviour from Armah. He said the Romanian club has since been reluctant to settle the player's enticement fee balance of 12,000 dollars and salaries amounting to 16,500 dollars.

Among some the allegation made against Armah in the letter were that the player reported late for the start of the league season, was not following training instructions and granted interview to a Romania Press. Mr. Ahwoi said through the collective effort of Hearts and the Ghana Football Association (GFA), the foreign club agreed to pay the balance within a month.

Mr. Ahwoi said after that correspondence, the club expressed further interest in Armah and promised to take him back after the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. He said unknown to Hearts Management, Armah had signed a personal agreement with the Romania club that the money be paid to him on his arrival in Romania. Mr. Ahwoi said since the club failed to live by its word and abandoned the player Hearts were unable to retrieve the balance based on the undertaken Armah had with his foreign team.

On another allegation made by the player that Mr. Ernest Thompson, Secretary to the Board, signed his (Armah) column of the agreement, document tendered in showed that Mr. Thompson signed as a representative of Hearts and not in the name of Armah. Unfortunately, Armah's counsel was not given the chance to cross-examine Mr. Ahwoi because of time constrains.