Please, let’s get serious and real

Captain, Amos Frimpong in action. 

The past week has seen Kotoko fans calling anybody they deem fit to find out what has been happening to their great club lately. A lot of the calls I have received for example was obviously triggered by the shocking 3-0 home defeat to Berekum Chelsea and the subsequent 1-0 away loss to West Africa Football Academy otherwise known as WAFA.

I could hardly offer straightforward answers to many of the questions I was asked by my Kotoko friends on the team’s poor results. However, overtime, because I have developed an aversion  for people who are quick to assign spiritual reasons to explain Kotoko’s non-performance, I had trouble with some people.

I upset a few people with my abhorrence for any talk that centred on juju. I don’t deny the existence of spiritual forces and their power but with my conviction is that football has long assumed scientific dimensions so much so that we simply deceive ourselves to blame Kotoko's woes on unseen spiritual forces.

Imagine some people arguing so strongly that, Kotoko haven't done well lately in Kumasi because of some rituals performed by certain individuals at the stadium and that, until goats, sheep and bullocks were slaughtered at the home venue, the team’s recent dip in performance would continue.

How can that be? Why should some think like that in this era, where clubs without the pedigree of Kotoko are resorting to good management practices to achieve success of various kinds? The other time at the club’s secretariat an elderly man, apparently a Kotoko fan, came with the story that, the Porcupines have been bewitched and that, he knew a man of God who could deliver the players through intensive fasting and prayers.

A management member patiently listened to his story and politely thanked him for his advice.  Do we know what would happen to the team if management were to act on all the spiritual directions they are given anytime the team begins to underperform? This is football; we can’t bank on superstition.

Another time too, a gentleman wielding a Bible visited the Kotoko secretariat. He was given audience and his story was no different from the usual tales we've always heard. I'm not ruling out the fact, in a dark, satanic world such as ours, an organization could have spiritual problems. I am also not contending that, individuals in an institution can’t be spiritually attacked for whatever reason.

I'm only saying that, football's problems – particularly the type Kotoko and Hearts recently face are neither solved with Bibles or juju nor are they eliminated by pastors and prophets. The problems, if any, are solved with big, real ideas; deep-thinking, proper planning, visionary leadership; money and a wide range of resources; patience, transparency and the strong resolve to achieve the best regardless of the obstacles that will come your way.

Nobody in the current management structure of Kotoko doubts the existence of spirits and whatever influence they have so the protagonists can undertake any intervention they think fit on behalf of management as they sit back and think to find practical answers to the team’s non-performance.

This isn’t the time to discuss the often over-stated issues of philosophy, structures and comprehensive development agenda for Kotoko. I’ve always held that, club football in Ghana is faced with basic problems and not until there's an honest admission of that, we can't do much to change the situation. Isn't it a wonder that the nation biggest clubs, Kotoko and Hearts are experiencing virtually the same problems?

And who says it's only these two clubs that are suffering? Almost all the Premier League and lower division clubs in the country have dire structural problems affecting their development but their near state of collapse do not attract wide media attention. This is the time for all of us with love for local football to be real and serious with modern trends of the game.

We aren’t doing much to improve our lot. We seem to have stuck to archaic and unproductive methods of club administration. That accounts for some of the mess we've seen. I am afraid the situation will remain the same if we don't change. How I wish the real issues or the plight of local football would engage the minds of congressmen at the next GFA's Congress.