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Ghana warned on floodlights tricks

6 September 2012 Times

Football Association of Malawi (Fam) has warned their Ghana counterparts not to play any tricks with floodlights when the two sides clash in Africa Cup of Nations swim or sink qualifier at Accra Sports Stadium this Saturday.

The game will kick off at 15:30 GMT(17:30 Malawi time) and Fam says it does not want a repeat of what happened when Ghana was playing World Cup qualifier against Lesotho at Baba Yara Stadium in June when the game was interrupted for an hour due to floodlights failure.

The hosts were leading 1-0 but Lesotho were pressurising them and were about to equalise when suddenly the lights went out.

The two sides waited for an hour as electricians were working to restore the lights but after the play resumed, the hosts reorganised themselves, took control of the game and scored six more goals.

Fam general secretary Suzgo Nyirenda said although the game would start at 5:30 pm it was likely that floodlights would be necessary in the second half.

Nyirenda said he had been warned by Lesotho FA to watch out for the trick which they claimed put out the steam in their attack.

"We have been informed that the game will be played in the evening .We don't want that to happen to our team and we have told them clearly that we will not accept any of such tricks on us. We don't really know what went into that but we wouldn't want to wait one hour without lights, we want to play swiftly that's all."

"We hope we are going to get a good result without any off the pitch hitches so if our friends in Ghana want the game to be played late, we just don't want what happened in the Lesotho – Ghana game to repeat itself," Nyirenda said.

In a related development, it has also been revealed that the venue of the stadium has cracks just like closed Malawi's Kamuzu Stadium.

"Safety concerns have beenraised about the Accra Sports Stadium to host the match with visible cracks at the edifice that was built and refurbished to purposely host the 2008 Nations Cup," Ghanasoccernet.com reported yesterday.

Accra Sports Stadium has gone down in history as a stadium where the worst tragedy in African sporting history claimed the deaths of at least 126 fans in 2001.

Witnesses blamed police for triggering a fatal stampede by firing tear gas in an attempt to quell violence at the game between the country's two top clubs, Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko.

Many soccer fans have lamented about the poor state of the facility despite authorities passing it fit to host the crucial first leg.