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Was Herbert Addo used as scape goat at Hearts of Oak?

In Ghana coaches are used as scape goats whenever clubs failed to deliver on the field of play; an example is the case of departed Hearts of Oak coach, Herbert Addo who was sacked on Tuesday for non performance after a marathon meeting at the club’s secretariat.

Herbert Addo

Herbert Addo took the reign of Hearts of Oak prior to the 2014/15 season and was unveiled on the 31th July, 2014 at the Metro TV premises in Accra; the veteran trainer was in high hopes of restoring the club’s glory which has been the mantra of the Phobians for the past 2 seasons.

When Herbert Addo was unveiled on that faithful day this was his words:

“We already have quality players, I just need to see these players and work with them. My last club (Inter Allies), I and the boys set ourselves a target of 41 points and worked towards it. I personally set a target of 45 points.

“I was not able to achieve my personal target but the team did and that’s the most important thing. If we are on the same wavelength, we’ll work together and achieve our targets,” he said.

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And the long awaited Ghanaian season began, the Phobians won their first game against WAFA afterwards they started fumbling in the rest of their league games. However Herbert Addo started to work magic for Hearts of Oak in their continental games [Confederation Cup] a competition they last played in 2004 and won it.

Hearts of Oak in their continental game failed to book their ticket to the money zone [Group stage]; they got eliminated by Esperance de Tunis on a 5-1 aggregate. Now attention was turn to the domestic front and the club failed to exhibit their Africa exploits in the league. [Currently 12th on the log sheet, one point away from the relegation drop, also crashed out of the FA Cup].

With all this bad results, it also came to the fore that players have not been paid their salary for some time now. A leak tape went viral – in which unidentified players of the club made mockery of the current state of the club.

However, Herbert Addo in one of his interviews complained that his players are starving because the players have not been paid their salaries in 3 months.

The Management of Hearts of Oak failed to fulfill their financial obligation to the playing body but they rather saw it wise to terminate Herbert Addo’s contract for lack of performance.

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But one can make a useful argument to say that the Board of Hearts of Oak led by Togbe Afede XIV has failed the teeming fans of the oldest existing club in the country based on what the Board chairman said during the unveiling of Herbert Addo and his technical staff.

“This is evidence of where we want to take Accra Hearts of Oak to, we want to win the upcoming league and more that’s why we have gone for the best coach in the land. We want to establish Hearts of Oak as an international club way beyond Ghana and Africa.

“Coach Addo, it’s a great honour for us to have you. We look forward to working with you and we look forward to celebrating victory after victory, glory after glory. We want to return to the days when we were ranked the 8th best club in the world and we believe you can do it. The sky is the limit,” the Board Chairman said.

Has the veteran trainer been used as scape goat in the current predicament facing the club and will coach Addo’s sacking positively affect the performance of the club with nine games to end the First Capital Plus Bank Premier?

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