Sack Osam Duodu - Harry Zakkour

Even before the Black Stars face South Africa in their crunch second group B match at the on-going Africa Cup of Nations in Mali, Hearts of Oak Chief Executive Harry Zakkour has called on soccer authorities to dispense of the services of the coach when the team arrived back home.

"The GFA management board should pay him off and look for a more competent coach to handle the Stars", Zakkour apparently disappointed after the Ghana-Morocco match, told the GNA sports in Accra on Wednesday.

He said even though he is not a coach, he believes the team would have performed better if the right selection had been made.

The Chief Executive who has been in football for the past 33 years wonders how a player like Derek Boateng of Greece team Panathinaikos and Ishmael Addo of Hearts of Oak fame could not even form part of the first 18 players.

He questioned how a local player who features regularly for 90 minutes could be dropped for a foreign-based who hardly plays for 90 minutes.

Mr Zakkour said the coach made a very big mistake right from Accra where he left out most of his seasoned local players including Ghana's most valuable player Charles Taylor after months of camping.

He said by the coach's action Kotoko's Board Chairman, Herbert Mensah, has been vindicated for not allowing his players to join the Stars on grounds of wrong approach by the GFA and against the backdrop that the players would end up as "training horses".

"You can not tell me that Alex Techie Mensah who wasted a 90th minute opportunity is better than Issa Mohammed of Hasaacas or that some of the defenders the coach fielded were better than Joe Hendricks of Kotoko", Mr Zakkour said.

The Chief Executive said it was sad that the coach chose to agitate for a higher salary in Mali, an issue he could have discussed with the authorities in Accra.

He said much as CAF frowns on government interference in soccer administration, President J.A. Kofuor, his vice Aliu Mahama and Youth and Sports Minister, Edward Osei Kweku, who were all one time involved in soccer, should liase with the GFA to find a last solution to the country's downward trend in the sport.

On the Stars chances in Thursday's match, he said, "football is football, you could be the best and yet could be beaten". The Chief Executive said the Stars could pull a surprise win over the South Africans who have beaten them twice since 1996.

Asked whether Samuel Kuffour expulsion from the team could affect the morale of the boys, Mr Zakkour said, "that is why the authorities should have exercised restraint in their action". He said that notwithstanding, the Black Stars could still surprise all.