Medeama’s trip to Mazembe in danger?
Medeama Sporting Club are in a dilemma days to their Orange CAF Confederation Cup Group A opener against African Super champions TP Mazembe in Lubumbashi on Sunday.
After qualifying to the so-called ‘money zone’ of the competition at the expense of South African champions Mamelodi Sundowns last month, the expectation was that Medeama and the seven other qualifying teams would be cushioned financially to lessen their burden.
However, that does not seem to be the case for now as Medeama struggle for funds for flight tickets two days to their departure to DR Congo tomorrow.
Lamenting over the issue in an interview with the Graphic Sports yesterday, a disturbed president of Medeama, Moses Armah, said the club was in a fix as it was yet to hear from CAF regarding the financial details for the group matches.
“As I speak we have not heard from CAF about how much we are going to get and nobody is telling us anything,” he complained.
“As a result of that the airlines keep cancelling our tickets since we are not sure when we can get money to pay them.”
“We have since petitioned CAF through the GFA but we’ve not still heard anything yet.”
The Tarkwa-based club plan to leave for DR Congo tomorrow afternoon ahead of Sunday’s clash.
The situation appears quite worrying, especially where Medeama are the nation’s only hope for continental glory this year.
Mr Armah, aka Mospacka, said the club had no other choice than to fall back on their headline sponsor, Gold Fields Ghana Limited Tarkwa-Damang, for financial assistance but they were yet to receive a response as of press time yesterday.
He seized the opportunity to make a passionate appeal to the government and corporate institutions to come to their aid to enable them to make the trip.
According to him, Medeama were determined to upset TP Mazembe in their dreaded backyard on Sunday to make the nation proud.
They proved their readiness for that battle by beating visiting Techiman City 2-0 in their outstanding league match at Tarkwa yesterday morning, courtesy goals by Bismark Oppong and Kwasi Donsu.
In spite of the difficulties, Medeama were scheduled to shift camp to Sogakope yesterday to afford the players an opportunity to train on WAFA’s synthetic pitch since TP Mazembe has a similar turf.