Eric Nyarko, a former Accra Hearts of Oak midfielder, has admitted that the club never gave him or his colleagues any recognition for winning the 2004 CAF Confederations Cup.
Eric Nyarko was a member of the Hearts of Oak team that defeated Asante Kotoko 8-7 on penalties to win the inaugural CAF Confederation Cup after a 2-2 aggregate score in the final.
Eric Nyarko asserted that the squad was never given anything in exchange for winning the famous trophy nearly 20 years after it was won.
Speaking in an interview with Dan Kwaku Yeboah, the former Hearts of Oak player stated that players were only paid based on matches paid and not a penny was paid for winning the trophy.
“Sometimes I don’t want to talk about money issues because Hearts of Oak has opened many doors for me but God knows we didn’t get anything,” Eric Nyarko said.
He added, “We thought we had made it in life after winning the Confederations Cup but when it got to time for them to give us the prize money I can Adja Tetteh had the biggest. The money is not even equivalent to ¢2,000 or ¢,500 cedis. I can say some people even got paid ¢150 cedis.”
According to him, his decision to visit the past is to ensure “that our management members would wake up and do the right thing,” Eric Nyarko said.