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Ghanaian footballer Okyere recounts earthquake escape
Ghana midfielder Priscilla Okyere is terrified of going to sleep, afraid that another earthquake might happen when she is in bed. The 27-year-old plays for Hatayspor in southern Turkey, and is a survivor of the devastating quake that struck there on Monday.
The earthquake is already considered the worst worldwide in a decade. So far it is known to have killed over 20,000 people in Turkey and Syria – a toll that will certainly rise.
Hatayspor is the club whose men’s team Okyere’s compatriot Christian Atsu plays for. Atsu, along with the club’s sporting director Taner Savut, remains missing.
“I have not been sleeping for four days – I’m so scared to go to sleep,” Okyere told BBC Sport Africa.
“Even today, we had a safe place to sleep. I haven’t closed my eyes from 5am til now.
“When someone bangs the door, I wake up because I’m scared. I don’t want to close my eyes and realise this thing is happening again.”
Okyere is now in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, after her coach arranged for her and her seven roommates to leave Hatay after the earthquake.
But the ordeal left her scarred.
“I was terrified. I cried for days,” she explained.
“I can’t imagine how lucky we were to get out from that situation, because most people couldn’t get out. But we were able to.”
Okyere joined Hatayspor six months ago from Israeli club Tel-Aviv Beersheva.
Like most people who live in southern Turkey, the club’s players had felt tremors before. So when the earthquake struck in the early hours of Monday, she believed it was normal.
“We were coming from a game in Istanbul and we weren’t home until around 2am,” she said.
“We had to shower and then get some sleep. At first, I thought I was dreaming because since we came to Hatay, I experienced (tremors) it two times. Sometimes the building would just shake within 30 seconds and it stops.
“When it happened, I thought it was a normal thing but I realised this was much more intense than the previous ones.”
She went to check on her team-mates, and then hurried outside as all around her began to crumble
“When I got down, the buildings were just collapsing, and everybody was crying, trying to find shelter,” she said.
“It was raining heavily outside, and everyone was cold. We were not wearing any jackets – nothing. We had gone outside barefoot.
“We weren’t even thinking about how cold we were at that moment. What we wanted to think about was how to get our passports.
“We had to find a shelter in someone’s car for almost five hours before the whole thing calmed down, and then we were able to go back to the house.”
Though badly damaged, the building Okyere and her teammates lived in had not collapsed. But they had to leave the area, and with all public transport suspended, they wandered the streets looking for food.
They were immediately concerned that there was no way to get in contact with their families back home, even as news began to filter out to the wider world of the quake.
“The first thing that came into my mind was my mother, because she’s always worried about where I am always want to know what is going on,” Okyere said.
“But we couldn’t communicate directly to our family because all the networks were not working.
“But you could call within Turkey, So I spoke to my agent, and I gave him my mother’s number so he could to talk with her and make sure that everything is okay.”
Eventually, Okyere and her teammates were able to leave Hatay.
While she and her teammates are safe, she said concern remains for other members of the wider Hatayspor club, including the men’s team and officials.
“We don’t know anything about the men’s team because they live far from us, even though we live in the same city,” she explained.
“But our brother (Christian) Atsu, we always talk to him on phone. He texts us all the time.
“Since the incident happened, nobody knows his whereabouts. We don’t even know what is happening.”
Okyere said she is trying to remain positive in the face of all the devastation, and her biggest wish right now is to go home to Ghana to spend some time with her family.
“For Hatayspor our season is over because the city is destroyed,” she said.
“For management, we don’t know anything about their whereabouts. So for us we know that for the men and the women the season is over,.
“We will try to look for another club because I think that most clubs are also interested in some players from Hatayspor. I think hopefully maybe we will get something.
“For me, only thing that is in my mind right now is I just want to go back to Ghana. At least have one week or two weeks rest with the family.”
-BBC
Scottish referee John Beaton has revealed that he and his family were placed under police protection after the controversial penalty decision he made in Celtic’s dramatic 3-2 Premiership victory over Motherwell triggered online threats and the leaking of his personal information.
Speaking through a statement issued by the Scottish Football Association, Beaton described the tense aftermath of the decision that has intensified the Scottish title race ahead of the final day of the season.
The controversy erupted deep into stoppage time when Beaton, after consulting VAR, ruled that Motherwell defender Sam Nicholson had handled the ball inside the penalty area, despite the absence of immediate appeals from Celtic players.
Nigeria international Kelechi Iheanacho calmly converted the resulting penalty to hand Celtic a crucial 3-2 victory, leaving only one point between the champions and league leaders Heart of Midlothian before Saturday’s decisive clash at Celtic Park.
However, the fallout from the decision quickly escalated beyond football.
“John Beaton and his family spent Thursday night at home under police surveillance following a leak of personal details online,” the Scottish FA disclosed, condemning what it described as “attempts to compromise the safety of match officials.”
Police Scotland confirmed that a 19-year-old man had been arrested and charged in connection with a data protection offence linked to the publication of personal information relating to the referee. The suspect is expected to appear before Hamilton Sheriff Court at a later date.
The Scottish FA defended Beaton and match officials generally, warning that referees were increasingly becoming targets of abuse over subjective decisions made during matches.
“Referees are not infallible. Mistakes will be made on the field, and subjective calls made in front of the VAR monitor,” the association stated.
The governing body also blamed what it called a “hysterical media narrative” fuelled by emotional post-match interviews, commentary and social media reactions for placing Beaton and his family in danger.
The incident has reignited debate in Scottish football over the treatment and safety of referees, especially in high-stakes matches involving title contenders.
Celtic and Heart of Midlothian will now meet in a potentially title-deciding encounter on Saturday, with tensions already heightened by the controversy surrounding Beaton’s late penalty call.
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Angry fans of a football club in Tripoli protesting a referee decision set fire to the facade and garden of the headquarters of Libya’s Government of National Unity (GNU), two eyewitnesses and a local TV channel said on Thursday.
The violence flared in the capital on Thursday evening, after fans of Tripoli’s Al-Ittihad football club took to the streets to protest a referee’s decision denying them a penalty kick in a match against Misrata’s Swehly club.
The match was played at Tarhouna’s city stadium, about 65 km (40 miles) southeast of Tripoli. A Reuters journalist who watched the match said it was stopped in the 87th minute after Al-Ittihad protested the decision.
Al-ittihad fans at the match stormed the pitch, sparking a riot that damaged property and injured stadium guards, the journalist said.
Pictures on social media showed guards with wounds on their heads, legs and hands being rushed to a hospital in Tarhouna.
In Tripoli, according to two eyewitnesses, Al-ittihad fans who had been watching the match at their club’s complex marched towards the GNU building and set off fireworks “to express their anger”, causing the building’s facade to catch fire.
“The situation was very chaotic, with thick smoke rising into the sky, and cars in the area were trying to leave before things got worse because the fans were very angry,” one of the eyewitnesses said.
Video footage posted on the internet and from Istanbul-based Libya Al-Ahrar TV channel showed flames engulfing the glass facade of the GNU building and thick plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.
There was no immediate response by the GNU to a Reuters request for a comment. The situation calmed down around midnight as GNU forces deployed around the building and firefighters brought the fire under control.
Al-Ittihad, in a statement on its verified Facebook page, demanded “a comprehensive review of all refereeing decisions during the match”. Swehly said in a short statement on Facebook that its team was heading back to Misrata “crowned with victory”.
The internationally recognised GNU is headed by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, who came to power in 2021 in a U.N.-brokered process.
Libya has had little stability since a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 ousted longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi.
-Reuters
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Celtic’s Kelechi Iheanacho scored a controversial penalty with the last kick of the game to secure a 3-2 win at Motherwell on Wednesday, sending the Scottish Premiership title race to a final-day showdown against leaders Heart of Midlothian.
With Hearts beating Falkirk 3-0 at home and Celtic being held after Motherwell’s Liam Gordon scored an 85th-minute equaliser at Fir Park, a first title in 66 years was within touching distance for the Edinburgh club.
Had it stayed like that, Celtic would have needed to beat Hearts by a three-goal margin at home on Saturday.
But deep in stoppage time, Motherwell’s Sam Nicholson headed away a ball into the area but was adjudged by referee John Beaton, after a VAR check and his viewing a pitch-side monitor, to have brushed the ball with his raised hand despite no Celtic player appealing for it.
Under enormous pressure, Iheanacho stayed ice cool to slot his kick past keeper Calum Ward to spark a pitch invasion by delirious Celtic fans and take an epic title race to a climax on Saturday, where Hearts will need a draw to become the first team other than Celtic or Rangers to be champions since 1985.
While Celtic manager Martin O’Neill praised his side’s never-say-die spirit, Hearts manager Derek McInnes, having watched the video of Celtic’s penalty, struggled to contain his anger.
“It’s disgusting. We’re up against everybody. I don’t think it’s a penalty,” he told Sky Sports. “It’s so poor, and it looks as though (Celtic) have been given it.
“They are very fortunate. It’s going to the last game. We’re delighted to be part of it. We’re going to have to go and get a positive result. What a game it’s going to be.”
Motherwell manager Jens Berthel Askou described the penalty decision as “shocking”. “I can’t see any paragraph in the rule book that can lead to that being a penalty,” he said.
Hearts have 80 points from 37 games with Celtic, who have won six league games in a row, on 79.
GLUED TO THEIR PHONES
Goals by Frankie Kent, Cammy Devlin and Blair Spittal earned Hearts the points at Tynecastle, where fans were glued to their phones checking on events 40 miles away.
They cheered when news of Elliot Watt’s opening goal for Motherwell came through, and when Kent sent a bullet header into Falkirk’s net after 29 minutes, and Devlin made it 2-0 to Hearts with a deflected shot, the mood was ecstatic.
Some Hearts fans were even shedding tears of joy, although when Celtic equalised at Motherwell through Daizen Maeda, the mood was dampened slightly.
An eerie silence descended on Tynecastle for much of the second half after Benjamin Nygren’s stunning second goal for Celtic changed the dynamics.
All that mattered then was what was happening at Fir Park, where Motherwell were laying siege to the Celtic goal. Motherwell hit the crossbar with a deflected Elliot Watt strike , with Tawanda Maswanhise’s rebound saved by Viljami Sinisalo.
Gordon’s equaliser for Motherwell had the Hearts fans dancing again, but their joy turned to disbelief as events unfolded elsewhere that will raise the ghosts of the last time Hearts were so close to the title.
Forty years ago, Hearts arrived at the final day of the 1985-86 season unbeaten in 27 league games, two points ahead of Celtic and requiring just a draw at Dundee to win the trophy.
Instead, Celtic fan Albert Kidd scored two late goals to give Dundee a 2-0 win at Dens Park, and Celtic romped to a 5-0 victory against St Mirren to snatch the title on goal difference and leave Hearts broken.
-Reuters
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