Hearts and Kotoko fans in violent clash ahead of FA Cup final

There was mayhem at the Tamale Sports stadium on Saturday when supporters of Asante Kotoko and Hearts of Oak violently clashed during the final training sessions held at the Tamale Sports stadium on Saturday.

Two of Kotoko’s officials, Obed Acheampong – who is the head of Communications at Kotoko- and one Benjamin Ofori-Kwakye, were allegedly beaten up by security personal at the stadium as well as Hearts of Oak fans, because they duo tried to stop Hearts from training at the stadium ahead of the FA Cup final.

Details about the cause of the actual incident is still sketchy, but eye-witnesses that GhanaWeb spoke to say that the confusion started after Hearts of Oak reported late for the final training session, and demanded that Kotoko vacate the field for them since they (Kotoko) had finished training anyways.

This, we are told did not go down well with Kotoko and its supporters, who felt that once Hearts had failed to turn-up for training at the time allotted them by the FA Cup Committee, they should not be allowed to train at all as a punitive measure.

But Hearts of Oak claim they had changes in their flight arrangements and arrived in Tamale at 11:30am instead of the planned 9:30am, hence their inability to hold their mandatory session which was pegged from 8am to 11am.

Hearts, according to organisers were supposed to train between 8am to 11am for Kotoko to train between 3pm to 5pm.

Kotoko claimed they were uncomfortable with Hearts training after them and would not leave the field for the Phobians to train since their period between 8am to 11am had elapsed.

Organiser had a turbulent moment of restoring sanity to allow Hearts to train which took the Phobians deep into the dark.

The two sides will clash in a titanic encounter on Sunday in the MTN FA Cup final.
This is the first time in almost 3 decades that the two sworn-rivals are meeting in the FA Cup final. Their last meeting was in 1990 when Kotoko won 4-2.