Hearts of Oak of 2000 would have beaten Real Madrid at the Club World Cup - Harry Zakkour

Former Hearts of Oak chief Harry Zakkour says that his Hearts of Oak team that lifted the 2000 African Champions League trophy affectionately called the '64 battalion' could have defeated even the likes of Real Madrid and Manchester United at the time.

The Phobians won their first continental trophy 20 years ago against Esperance after beating them by 3-1 at the Accra Sports Stadium after winning the first leg 2-1 away in Tunisia.

A confident sounding Harry Zakkour told Joy Fm in an interview that they would have beaten Real Madrid and Manchester United who were all supposed to have played in that abortive tournamnet.

"I took Hearts of Oak to number 8 on the CCN chart and we could have beaten Real Madrid or Manchester United had we played in the tournament." he told Joy Fm.

The former Hearts Chief bemoaned why the club is currently struggling domestically and blames it on bad leadership.

"I don’t see why Hearts of Oak is not doing well today. My friend Togbe (Afede) should get good people to run the club and there should be a management team aside from the Board and the Board should get closer to the team."

The phobians last won a major title in 2009 when they won the Ghana Premier League but have gone on a barren spell since then.

Hearts were supposed to represent Africa at the World Club Championship but that competition was cancelled due to logistical issues with the hosting of the tournament as it was initially scheduled to be  hosted in Brazil but they were not able to renovate their stadiums in time for the tournament.

Fifa then wanted to host it in Spain but ultimately the new dates did not favour the participating teams so it was cancelled.