Middle ground appearing in the Charles Taylor Saga

Accra, July 30, GNA - After over five months of wrangling between officials of Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko complicated by entrenched positions taken by both sides, a middle ground finally seems to be in sight.

This was after a heated marathon meeting between officials of the two sides late Tuesday night at the request of Kotoko, which now seemed prepared to pay training and development fees of Charles Taylor to Hearts of Oak.

Information gathered by the GNA Sports from sources close to both camps said the meeting was so heated that officials had to be restrained to avert any nasty incidents.

The sources said the main bone of contention throughout the more than two hours meeting was Hearts' figure for the development fee, an amount Kotoko officials said was too high.

Another knotty point was the percentage payable to Hearts during an onward transfer of the Taylor.

The sources said while officials of Hearts demanded 50 per cent for an onwards transfer; Kotoko officials said the percentage was on the high side.

The sources said should both camps failed to come to a compromise they would refer the case to the Ghana Football Association (GFA) for arbitration.

It is speculated that the meeting became apparent after Hearts decided to go to the law courts to restrain the GFA from registering Taylor to any other club.

It is believed that when Hearts are granted the restraining order it would wreck all plans by the Porcupine Warriors to register the player for the African Cup Winners' Cup Competition, which registration opens in August.

Taylor, a player of Hearts of Oak breached a three-year contract which resulted in the GFA referring the case to the FIFA, the world football governing body which endorsed a compensation fine of 650 million cedis on the player and a 200 million cedis fine on Kotoko for inducing the breach.

The case took another turn when FIFA came out with another ruling last Friday that the players is free to move without any further compensation being paid to his former club.

But Hearts said the compensation was not the same as Training and Development fee and are therefore praying the courts for a correct interpretation of a clause on transfer of players as stipulated in FIFA's regulations.