RTU RELEGATION WOES DEEPEN (GRAPHIC SPORTS, SEPT 20-22, 2011, PAGE 2)

THE relegation of Real Tamale United (RTU) threatens to erode the continuous survival of the club as some interested parties are disagreeing on the way forward for the club. Whiles speculations are rife that some board members of the club are allegedly making arrangements to take over the newly-promoted premier league club, Wassaman, to replace RTU, founding members of the club think that such a move could spell doom for the club. In a press statement issued in Tamale and signed by Alhaji Alhassan Alolo, on behalf of the founding members, the group intimated that taking over a new club and using Tamale as its base would be to the detriment of RTU. “The board members, if they execute such a decision, would have rendered the toil and sweat that the founders of the club went through to make the club the beacon of the north,” the statement read. In the estimation of the group, such an action would amount to abandoning RTU at a time when the management should rather be “refurbishing the club to prepare it to face the intricacies of the first division.” “Paradoxically, the amount that would be used to purchase the said club could be used to strengthen RTU and place it back on track,” the statement further read. The founding members stated their resolve to defend the club from being replaced with another, stressing that “RTU remains a bona-fide club of the north. No person or group of persons should attempt to replace RTU with another club or use its name for another club.” Consequently, the group is pushing for the dissolution of the current management of the club, whiles backing any moves to institute an interim management.