Kotoko management structures revisited

Board of Directors of Kumasi Asante Kotoko

The headline for my piece today was informed by a text message I received from a Kotoko friend who eventually informed me that, the club and Soulama Abdoulaye have mutually parted ways. Although the experienced Burkinabe goalie had one more year left on his contract, he and Kotoko agreed to severe their existing contract.

You may be wondering how someone outside the club ended up informing a journalist of the club about such an important development. It is embarrassing but that is the truth. I had wind of Soulama’s possible move from Kotoko more than three weeks ago in my interaction with the goalie at the club’s secretariat. He was desirous of leaving Kumasi especially when he claimed that, there were signals that, Kotoko wasn’t willing to keep him in the new season.

I told my editors but Kotoko Express and Asantekotokosc.com didn’t publish the story. The paper needed management’s position first. Management opened up on the matter. Theirs was that, the technical team was well placed to speak on the goalie’s future. The appropriate thing to do was to speak to the head of the technical team, Coach Mas-ud Didi Dramani who interestingly was resolving his own contract issues with the Board of Directors of the club.

Was it going to be prudent to ask the coach questions about whether or not Soulama would be part of his team for the 2014/2015 season, when he himself was yet to be retained by the club?

The answer to myself was no. I engaged management again about a week ago on the issue. Their story was that based on a mutual agreement, Kotoko and Soulama would part ways.

An official release on the mutual agreement was to be released but that release didn’t reach Kotoko Express and Asantekotokosc.com offices. I rather received a text message from a friend on why he thinks Kotoko must organize a farewell match for Soulama after he had read the press release on Facebook, learning that, the goalie and Kotoko have mutually parted ways. This friend thus directed me to visit another friend’s Facebook wall when I told him; I haven’t seen that press release.

I will revisit the farewell match issue later. Today, I want to talk about how we seem to have taken the proper management of Kotoko lightly such that, a press release is issued, Kotoko Express which is owned by the club doesn’t get it; when questions are asked, neither the club’s management nor the goalkeeper – the two parties who signed and kept copies of the press release have any idea how the press release went public without the official mouthpiece of the club having a copy first.

I must state unequivocally that, the current management of Opoku Nti and George Kennedy; Didi Dramani and at times the Board Chairman, Paul Adu-Gyamfi open up to Kotoko Express and Asantekotokosc.com willingly and professionally. But the issue is not just about them speaking to the paper. It is in fact about the availability of proper management structures. It is sad that up till now management structures have not been put in place at Kotoko not just to aid the work of the club’s media outfit but indeed to ensure that Kotoko survives outside the shores of Ghana. 

It hurts. You have to be inside the club to understand the pain. Talking about Kotoko information management, I am not so naïve as a journalist to not fully appreciate that, even with the presence of solid management structures, information about the club will leak anyway.

As the Editor- in-Chief of the Crusading Guide, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako puts it; journalists have ways of intercepting documents even from the seat of government. No one can successfully regulate the various methods people outside institutions like Kotoko secure information but it is necessary that, we put in place proper management structures at Kotoko to make the administration of the club more professional.

Kotoko Express has often been accused of not contributing anything to the club; that’s false. It is has been said that the paper at times contradicts what managers of the club say on radio. What those accusers don’t know is that, Kotoko Express never fabricates stories although it is conceivable that the paper can err as it is being administered by humans.  

There can be no perfect management structure but surely Kotoko needs a formidable, properly defined management set-up and personnel tasked with specific roles to achieve the best especially outside Ghana. The current arrangement really is not the best. The Board of Directors must act to change the state of affairs because it doesn’t befit the status of Kotoko.