Kotoko play Serbian club Sun

After two previous disappointments, former Premier League champions, Kumasi Asante Kotoko, will now play a Serbian top-flight side, FC Jagodina, instead of Veria FC of Greece, at the Baba Yara Stadium on Sunday.

Jagodina jumped in at the last minute to save Kotoko from what would have been an embarrassing crowning of their 80th anniversary celebration in Kumasi on Sunday.

Kotoko were initially scheduled to play Greek side Veria as a replacement for Romanian giants FC Petrolul Ploiesti, but the club pulled out after the Ghanaian FA failed to sanction the match because it clashed with the Black Stars-Comoros World Cup qualifier at the same venue on November 17.

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) later gave Kotoko the greenlight to host the Greek side but it was botched for inexplicable reasons.

The match will be Kotoko’s third international friendly after English side Stoke City in the 1950s and German side, Bayern Leverkusen, in 1981.

The CEO of Pacific Football Limited, organisers of the match, Eric Oppong Yeboah, said the team was expected to arrive on Saturday for Sunday’s ‘cake-cutting’ game.

“The Jagodina match is only the beginning of many international matches lined up for Kotoko to be crowned with one of the biggest international friendlies ever when the club attains 100 years,” Mr Yeboah told the Daily Graphic.