Kotoko Express under the spotlight…

Over the last decade, Kotoko have seen numerous changes its in administration. The administrative changes, whether right or wrong have had both positive and negative implications on the development of the club. But in the face of all these changes, one department of the club that has thrived and continues to thrive is Kotoko Express – the official mouthpiece of the club.

Set-up by former Chairman, Sylvester Asare Owusu in 2003; the initially eight-page newspaper paper (presently 16 pages) has overcome many challenges to become undoubtedly, Ghana’s best club newspaper and one of the leading sports paper in the country if not the leader. Under every Kotoko administration, Kotoko Express has been supportive in diverse ways.

Between June and August 2010, Kotoko Express faced difficulties. It went off the newsstands for three months because of its debt not only to its printers but also to its editorial and auxiliary staff. This debt accrued from 2009 due to the club’s over-reliance on funds generated by the newspaper.

With the sound management practices of former Executive Chairman, Dr. K. K. Sarpong and the Chairman of the Kotoko Communications Board, Ambassador Kabral Blay-Amihere, Kotoko Express returned to the newsstands, cleared its huge debts in succeeding months and went full colour in January 2012, while re-paying its dues to management in latter part of 2012 and up to the middle of 2013.

The newspaper also purchased a vehicle for the first time to enhance its operations in Accra and across the country. Business was good for the newspaper then. Therefore, between December 2012 and June 2013 – a period of six months, Kotoko Express contributed a total of GHȼ62,000 (620 million old cedis) to the club. Going by available figures, it's logical that, given the quantum of money Kotoko Express has given to Kotoko in recent times, it will take time for the accounts of the newspaper to be “replenished” before it can dole out such amounts again. 

There are examples to support the above argument. In fact, there is adequate documentation to even show how the money given to the club in the period stated was utilized. Michael Helegbe (GHȼ 10,000), Right to Dream debt (GHȼ 20,000), Tema Youth debt (GHȼ 3,000) and other amounts paid to players: Kofi Agyare (GHȼ 300), Amos Frimpong (GHȼ 400), Kofi Nti Boakye (GHȼ 1,000), Ransford Osei (GHȼ 1,500) and Kwabena Adusei (GHȼ 1,500); and Dieter Schmidt’s debt (GHȼ 24,000) are all but examples of Kotoko Express contributions to Kotoko since 2012.

Thus the allegation by a Kumasi radio station on Thursday that, Kotoko Express contributes nothing to Kotoko is only spiteful and ill-motivated. The fact that Kotoko Express hasn’t made contributions to the club since July 2013 is not in contest but to put that out without finding out why, betrays a blatant, malicious intent to vilify Kotoko Express and needlessly pitch fans of the club against the newspaper.

It is also akin to soiling the integrity of the newspaper and its staff while at the same time, deceiving and misinforming Kotoko fans, most of who are wide awake. No discerning Kotoko fan will therefore fall for any unintelligent and irresponsible statement on radio concerning the financial contributions Kotoko Express make to the club. Any media house that wants to genuinely know the truth must be ready to debate facts, not hearsays.

Facts must be separated from emotive feelings. Regardless of whatever business strategy Kotoko Express adopts to improve its income, it has been proven through painstaking research that, the paper’s sales soar when interest in Kotoko events by supporters of the club go up. There are adverts which give the paper money but it has also been scientifically established that, when there are endless news worthy developments in Kotoko, constant exclusives and high supporters’ enthusiasm in and around the club, Kotoko Express’ sales increase significantly.

These are incontrovertible facts, not something spewed out of conjecture. Kotoko Express’ sales have been painfully low lately. The reasons are not difficult to find. Although Kotoko won the league, which started in September 2013 and ended in June 2014, attendance at Kotoko’s matches was poor. The point is fans who patronize Kotoko Express are practically no different from those who attend the team’s matches in Kumasi and also across the country.

Why does the team play in front of a near-empty Baba Yara Sports Stadium for example even when there have been continuous victories? The truth is enthusiasm in and around Kotoko has dropped lately. Kotoko Express' figures show that the drop started after the loss to Algeria’s JSM Bejaia to the exit of Dr. Sarpong and it continued after the Africa loss to Barrack Young Controllers (BYC) of Liberia.

This significant drop in Kotoko enthusiasm has made it difficult but Kotoko Express to make meaningful financial contributions to the present management. Discussions are ongoing to find out how best even the smallest contributions can be made. How this information was leaked to a media house and subsequently handled anyhow to misinform supporters and pitch them against the news paper vindicates the conviction that, Kotoko has management challenges. But we will be not daunted.

We have to stand by Kotoko and continue working to make things better. As media outfit, Kotoko Express doesn’t have to abandon the Board, management; the players and the technical team when things are bad. We will be no better than anti-Kotoko fans when we show such an attitude.

Let’s all seek and protect Kotoko’s interest. Let’s not be deceived by over-zealous radio presenters who are fed on half-truths and rush to broadcast without fulfilling the modest ethical demands of double-checking facts and ensuring balance to properly inform and educate the general public.

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.

This "eminent football administrators retreat" is irrelevant!

Youth and Sports Minister, Mahama Ayariga.

Since June 12, the attention of the world has been fixed on the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. For those of us in Ghana; our interest was mainly in the Black Stars who embarrassed the nation in the South American country. Indiscipline reigned in the Black Stars camp as there was brouhaha over appearance fee, culminating in the sacking,

no – the reassigning of former Youth and Sports Minister, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah along with his deputy, Joseph Yamin.

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) held a press conference on the Black Stars’ shame in Brazil but not everything was satisfactorily explained as the media disagreed with the FA, lambasting them for their mishandling of issues in the team’s camp with many calling for the dissolution of the Black Stars management committee. I supported and still support that call.

New Youth and Sports Minister, Mahama Ayariga announced the setting up of a three-man committee to ascertain what went wrong in Brazil while giving appropriate recommendations to forestall a recurrence of that national disgrace. The committee is yet to start work. Interestingly, as the football fraternity went to sleep on Thursday, July 10, 2014, a circular emerged talking about: “The Group of Eminent Football Administrators’ Retreat to Review the State of the Game of Football in Ghana and Advice (sic) on a National Strategy”.

This has set tongues wagging in the media to the extent that, a critical scrutiny of the press release on the event even revealed that, the name of the hotel where the programme will held today was wrong. Let’s forgive whoever wrote the press release for that error but that, in insincerity, confirms the hastiness and by extension, irrelevance of this impulsive event.

That, the 60 people who have been invited to the retreat are not “eminent football administrators” isn’t an issue I would like to interrogate but quick view on that list is that, we don’t need all of them to brainstorm on the state of Ghana football offer advice. Again, I won’t question the intentions of the retreat organisers but they have clearly got it wrong.

Assuming that, the state of Ghana football is bad, I think, a retreat of this nature won’t change anything. The GFA have been legitimately vested with the powers to manage Ghana football. The retreat organisers should know this and stop wasting everybody’s time. What they have to do is to liaise with the FA to learn of the true state of affairs; encourage and support them.

The path taken by the retreat organisers even mocks the Youth and Sports Ministry. It exposes their ignorance but are the people at the Ministry novices? I should have been optimistic about this event because pessimism saps my energy to reason constructively but very typical of some of our leaders, they have given me reasons to pessimistic. That is sad. Why is it that, we keep wasting time and money on unhelpful things?

Our football is not all about the Black Stars and their continuous failure in international competitions. It is about the structures at the FA, it is about infrastructure, it is about organisation, it is about money, it is about the personnel and their knowledge and the level of professionalism they exhibit. That is what the retreat organisers must know.

Juvenile football is coma. It exist only on the FA’s mind and it is only mentioned in the FA’s long, winding speeches given at Congresses. Women’s football is struggling to find feet. There is hardly any attraction or interest in the Women’s league. Our domestic men’s league competitions aren’t well organised despite the GFA/PLB’s efforts to make it better.

Clubs are badly managed. They lack professionalism. Clubs don’t have money to recruit, keep and pay their players well. They play on bad pitches. They have poor or inadequate facilities to ensure growth or development. They are unable to compete well with their peers on the continent and beyond. That is the small picture I can paint of the state of Ghana football.

Retreat organisers, give us a break! Waste not our time and scarce resources on the so-called eminent football administrators’ retreat. We don’t need this retreat. Mr. Minister, please liaise with the GFA to learn of the true state of Ghana football. After that, let’s know what plans you have to help the FA change anything bad you find.

Who managed Ghana’s World Cup campaign?

We are out of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Thus the above question has to be asked. There will be more questions. After the Black Stars’ first round exit at Brazil 2014, the natural thing to do is to demand answers from those who managed affairs of the team in Brazil.

So, who managed Ghana’s World Cup campaign in the South American country? Was it the Youth and Sports Ministry? Was it the Ghana Football Association, the Black Stars Management Committee, the Technical Team or indeed, the campaign was managed by the five bodies?

 
By Ghana’s previous record at the competition, Brazil 2014 turned out to be the country’s poorest World Cup tournament, not really on the basis of the quality of play but of course, by the points garnered; one out of a likely nine and also by the fact that Ghana exited at the group stage.

At their maiden appearance in Germany 2006, the Black Stars’ 1/16th stage exit, losing 3-0 to Brazil was hailed. It was Ghana’s first time. More so, at the time when the other African teams had been disappointing, the Black Stars’ display was impressive. In South Africa 2010, when all Africa’s representatives failed to glitter, the Black Stars, remarkably, cruised to the quarter-final. They lost on penalties to Uruguay. Ghanaians and Africa as a whole were therefore right when they dreamt that the Black Stars would excel in Brazil. That didn’t happen.

The questions to ask are: what went wrong and who managed the World Cup campaign? The Black Stars might have drawn one and lost twice on the pitch but outside the pitch, there was no draw. The team lost everything. It’s either they didn’t have it or they lost all the things; the tranquility of mind, sound planning and the unity that teams usually need to progress at tourneys like the World Cup.

I was not in Brazil but all the off-the-pitch news reports I followed pointed to one thing: that, there was uneasy calm in the Black Stars camp. The GFA denied some of the reports and also confirmed the others especially when things got out of control.

I hate to dabble in unproven allegations. Professionally it is unethical. Morally, it is sinful to thrive on falsehood and even proceed to question people’s competence on that basis. Yet in a country where the first disposition of most authorities is to be defensive when they have failed to perform to expectation, the temptation for the public to feel hopeless is real.

Ours is an FA that appears to have specialized in not achieving anything significant with the Black Stars yet after every tournament they behave as if nothing went wrong. Player indiscipline was Ghana’s bane in Brazil. Indiscipline took centre stage in camp.

What was done by authorities in charge of the team when reports emerged that one of the players slept outside camp? That a player could have the effrontery to assault an FA official confirmed the height of indiscipline in camp. There were vehement denials of a "player revolt" but later events gave ample credence to the thick cloud of tension that hanged around Ghana’s camp because of players’ disrespect for authorities.

Players almost boycotted training because of unpaid appearance fee. Even after millions of dollars – cash were airlifted from Accra to Brasilia (and that was “unwise” according to Deputy Minister, Joseph Yamin but it had to be done), the team still couldn’t win. In all, the question remains: who managed Ghana's World Cup campaign?

If the South Africa 2010 quarter-final feat had been achieved authorities outside the playing body would have claimed some credit. Had the much-talked about semi-final or final dream also materialized, authorities again would have asked for some glory. All that didn’t happen. Ghana lost. The Black Stars had only one point. They exited early – at the group stage.

Whoever managed Ghana’s World Cup campaign must take full responsibility for this failure. Why did the players' appearance fee become a big issue? Why did the players threaten to boycott training? Why did a player sleep outside camp? How could a player assault an FA official? How could another player insult the coach? Ghanaians must have explanations to all that happened! Whoever managed our problem-ridden World Cup campaign must prepare to address the nation.

Enough of the distractions in Black Stars camp

GFA Spokesman, Ibrahim Saani Daara

It has in recent times become almost a ritual that, anytime Ghana, especially our senior national team, the Black Stars participate in international tournaments, certain developments which I call distractions, pop up. Eventually, instead of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) focusing primarily on what sent the team to the tournament, they rather engage the media; issuing press statements here and there to deny one issue or the other.

Again, in the end, the Black Stars don’t achieve their goal at the tourney. The GFA and sections of the media rather succeed in diverting everybody’s attention from the real issues. The team returns home with the promise of doing well at the next competition only for the media and the GFA “actors” to repeat or in fact, invent new forms of distractions at another tournament.

We have had enough of the ‘distractions’. It is high time we behaved seriously as a football country. We can’t continue to spend precious resources on football to the detriment of other equally important things only to go to tournaments to play with the intelligence of Ghanaians.

From the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Gabon-Equatorial Guinea in 2012, AFCON 2013 in South Africa and the latest, Brazil 2014, the GFA and sections of the media have had accusations and counter-accusations over the publication of stories which undoubtedly put Ghana in bad light not alone in the eyes of Ghanaians but also in the eyes of the whole world.

It may be natural to have negative developments in the camp of a team during a tournament. Yet it appears ours is becoming too much and unhealthy. It is high time we became serious and found civilized ways of managing affairs relative to bad developments in the Black Stars camp. It cannot be that journalists always wake up to fabricate stories about the team at tournaments.

When the Black Stars returned from AFCON 2012, there were damning reports of unbridled gambling in the team’s camp by the players. Stories about superstition and many other ridiculous tales were told by journalists who covered the team throughout the tournament. Not surprisingly, the came out to deny every bit of the information given by these journalists who were at the Gabon-Equatorial Guinea competition.

At AFCON 2013, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) ran a story that cited Ghana in a disparaging bribery story. Again, the GFA denied that story. They even went ahead to blame the GNA reporter at the tournament for putting out falsehood without initially contacting her. At one of Ghana’s matches in South Africa, there was a public, vitriolic exchange of abusive words between the FA spokesman and a GNA journalist, who, apparently, was wrongly accused.

Ghanaians up till now don’t know whether or not, what the GNA put out there was true. The GNA is not administered by angels so the tendency for them to make mistakes exist but given the credibility of the GNA overtime, it was hard for many people to accept the FA’s denial. How could the state-owned news agency lie about the national team? That issue, just like the Gabon-Equatorial Guinea one, died naturally after the GFA’s vehement denial.

Now this week in Maceio, Brazil, where the Black Stars are based, Myjoyonline.com reported of a "player revolt" in the team’s camp. The GFA was quick to deny that story too in a press release. They added that: the “Joy FM reporter in Maceio, Tony Bebli vehemently denied ever filing the report when he was confronted by Black Stars management and Asamoah Gyan”.

Like it happened in Gabon-Equatorial Guinea and in South Africa, the player “revolt story” in Maceio will die naturally but questions will remain. One of the questions will be whether it is simply journalists who have been fond of publishing falsehood about the Black Stars at tournaments or it’s rather the GFA which is always quick to sweep the truth under the carpet?

Whatever it is, let the GFA and all the “actors” in the continuing episodes of so-called false journalistic reportage and the GFA’s constant denials, be told, that, time, has a way of exposing liars. Such exposures are often embarrassing. The Black Stars and Gh