Pitch Invasion

Talk about a country getting behind its football team on the eve of a major tournament — African Cup of Nations hosts Ghana have been kicked out of their hotel, as price gouging mounts ahead of the opener in a few days. Kickoff.com reports:

According to reports emanating from Kenya, the Black Stars had been booked to stay at the luxury Labadia Beach Hotel, at a reduced rate negotiated months ago.

But when the team returned home from their training camp in Abu Dhabi, they found their booking from Wednesday had been cancelled so that the hotel could free up the rooms and make more money.

Some hotels in Accra are charging up to R2000 a night as they seek to profit from the visitors arriving for the tournament. Rates are in some case triple the normal prices charged.

On the plus side of this is that unprecedented numbers of travelling fans are expected from the competing nations.

Also worth reading — Some People Are On the Pitch has an excellent Cup preview, as does The Offside, and Road to 2010 World Cup continues to round-up all the news brilliantly.

Photo credit: Stig Nygaard