May 9th, 2001 is known as Ghana’s darkest day in football, as it is the day that the Ohene Gyan sports stadium, recorded the biggest and saddest disaster in the history of African Football.
It is recorded to have taken the lives of 126 people, making it the worst stadium disaster to have ever taken place in Africa. It is also the third-deadliest disaster in the history of association football behind the Estadio Nacional disaster and Kanjuruhan Stadium disaster.
Lucky TV sports team in commemorating the sad event on the hottest afternoon sports show in Ghana at the moment, host of ”ON THE FIELD” Boshyeba The Supremo, spoke to Francis Akwafo formerly of Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Dan Quaye, formerly of Accra Hearts of Oak who were part of the various teams on the day.
In the conversation, both the players spoke of how traumatizing that day was and how the feeling recurs every year when the sad event is remembered. When asked by the host, Boshyeba the Supremo, if they think the entire country has learnt any lessons from the said incident, Francis Akwafo said he wouldn’t say we have not learnt any lesson at all, but there is still a lot we need to learn as a people and a football loving nation in the aspects of officiating, crowd control and how fans behave at the stadium.
“I don’t believe we have learnt anything at all, there are too many things wrong in our football, looking at the hooliganism and bad officiating in our present day football” Dan Quaye said.
They appealed to authorities to fulfill their pledges to victims and their families and get their acts together if we ever hope to be known as a country with developing football.
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Story by Kobina Amissah (Online Media Admin)
