Hearts of Oak Communications Director, Opare Addo has disclosed that the club was keen on extending the contract of forward Joseph Esso before his contract expired.
The former Ebusua Dwarfs player has left the club after the expiration of his contract which has raised a lot of concerns over Hearts of Oak ability to keep their star players.
Esso was said to have requested for a one-year contract extension which the club had declined and wanted him to sign a two-year deal.
The negotiations between the two sides broke down which led to Hearts of Oak announcing Esso’s exit from the club together with four other players; Benjamin Agyare, Bernard Arthur, Abubakar Troare and Christopher Bonney.
Opare Addo says the decision to part ways with the club is justifiable as no professional club will be ready to sign a young player for just one season.
"Money was never an issue in our negotiations with Esso, he wanted to sign for just a season whilst we negotiated for a two-year deal”, he told Kumasi-based radio station Fox FM.
“It wasn't going to make a business sense for us to have signed him on a year deal. Since we couldn't reach a compromise we had to let go of him”.
Meanwhile Managing Director of Hearts of Oak, Frederick Moore, also disclosed that Joseph Esso and his guardian were not truthful with the facts to the media on his contract talks with the club.
He said that negotiations with the player had started right after the Normalisation Competition Special Competition in 2019 as the club was keen on extending his contract.
“I don’t want to talk about individual players but people are writing things that are not true. I hope and pray they didn’t get the facts from Joseph Esso, if so then it means they lied”.
“It will be unprofessional of me to reveal the facts. The negotiations started not long after the Normalisation Special Competition. After my conversation with the player and his guardian, the coach and the Board members also spoke to him. The player knows the truth and the people around him should speak to him”.