Karela United relocate to Tamale, CEO confirms

Ghana Premier League side Karela United have relocated to the Northern Regional capital of Tamale and adopted the Aliu Mahama Stadium as their home grounds for the rest of the 2023/23 betPawa Premier League season, the CEO of the club, Elloeny Amande, has revealed.

Mr Amande confirmed the switch from their Aiyinase base when he was making a contribution during the Graphic Sports X-Space Dialogue on the topic “Making The BetPawa Premier League Unmissable: The Role of Clubs, Media, GFA & Partners”. It was hosted by Editor of the Graphic Sports, Mr Maurice Quansah.

According to him, the new owner of the club, Haruna Iddrissu, had decided "where the interest of the club would best be served"; hence, their relocation from the Crosby Awuah Memorial Park to the Aliu Mahama Stadium to enable the club to connect very well with the community.

“Moving Karela to Tamale was a strategic decision by Mr Iddrisu, who is the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for the Tamale Central Constituency and also the owner of Division One side, Steadfast FC, also based in Tamale,” Mr Amande said.

“Bringing the two clubs to one city would enable them to share resources than when they were based in two regions a distance apart,” he added.

The Aliu Mahama Stadium will be shared by both Real Tamale United and Karela United this season.

On the fate of the Crosby Awuah Memorial Park, Mr Amande said the facility would revert to the traditional leaders who would hold it in trust for the community at Aiyinase in the Western Region.

Contributing to the discussion, the Karela United boss explained that until their recent relocation to Tamale, the club had been very deliberate about community engagement in their quest to whip interest in the club and in the league.

"For Karela, the players reside in the same communities as the fans, and that bond translates into matchday because the fans are coming to watch their friends," he explained.

He therefore, emphasised the importance of establishing a connection between clubs and their local communities.

For his part, a former Managing Director of Accra Hearts of Oak, Neil Armstrong Mortagbe, suggested that the best way to ignite passion in the league was by building marketing strategies around talented and exciting players to attract spectators to the stadium.

Mr Mortagbe bemoaned the flight of some of the best talents in the league in search of greener pastures overseas, a phenomenon, he said, had brought a major negative impact on the Ghanaian league.

He mentioned Accra Hearts of Oaks’ Ramos Kashala Wanet as an example of an emerging talent who had already started doing exploits in the league, expressing satisfaction about videos of the player on YouTube to project the player.

“To ignite passion, you need to create a buzz around your team and build a buzz around particular players in the team. The onus is on the clubs to identify these players.

“Build marketing strategies around poster boys in the league to attract spectators to the stadium to keep interest around our game. If we were leveraging the power of our league, our players would not be leaving,” he stressed.