Ghana’s representative in this year’s CAF Confederation Cup, Accra Hearts of Oak, revelling in their last Saturday’s qualification are dreading the financial cost involved in their next assignment which is said to be hovering around GH¢180,00 for the two-legged games against Olympic de Ngor.
Already, their first round game against AS Police of Benin has saddled them with some GH¢121,000 debt in an assignment which merely involved a road travel to the Benin capital of Cotonou.
According to the Administrative and Financial Manager of Hearts, Hackman Aidoo, the cost involved could have been much higher had the only option for the trip been by air.
He told the Graphic Sports yesterday that while the club was thinking about balancing the books after the A.S. Police conquest, it still must cough a bigger amount for the Senegal trip because this time around, it involved an air travel to and back from Senegal.
He disclosed that preliminaries estimates had revealed the club would need about $23,000 for return tickets for their 32-man contingent expected to make the trip with some $12,800 to be spent for accommodation for four nights.
He said but for the new CAF directive which enjoined all participating teams to take care of their hotel accommodation, the cost of hosting the first leg would have been quite colossal because the Phobians would have been further burdened by the task of looking for a hotel of the preference of the visiting teams.
Last Saturday's trip to Cotonou alone, according to him, cost the team in excess of GH¢37,000 and this, together with the over GH¢84,000, left the team with the debt of GH¢87,000 to contend with.
He said unlike previous times, the burden of financing the club's participation fell on several individuals both in within and outside the board, this particular campaign was obviously the burden of the club's Board Chairman and bankroller, Togbe Afede VIX.
"He has been the sole bankroller of the team for sometime now and the only way to reciprocate is for the fans to show their support,"Mr Aidoo added.