How To Run Kotoko……………Into The Ground!

It took me a while to choose an appropriate title for this piece, which will be focused on one of Ghana’s biggest clubs, Kumasi Asante Kotoko (Some would argue that it is Ghana’s biggest club). With current happenings at the club, I began to play back past events over the last 18 months and then, suddenly, it hit me! Since this piece is about effective running of a club, the title will leave room for the big question to be asked; is Kotoko being run effectively or is the club being run into the ground? Well, I will leave you to judge after reading this piece.

I will start by making a statement; if you want to run your football club into the ground, these are some of the ways to do so.

1. Appoint a group of rich club fans and ex-players to form the management team of the club. In fact, education and administrative expertise is not a prerequisite. It could even become a hindrance. Sometimes, a high level of education could even make you persona non grata amongst your fellow management members.

2. Always appoint your management members together. Never appoint one person and ask him to appoint his members. Give the impression that all management members are equal and that, unlike ‘Animal Farm’, none is more equal than the other.

3. Always give approval for funds to be splashed on players. In fact, do not consult the coach. After all, the management members know better than the coach, don’t they? Spend on a minimum of 20 players and in so doing, increase the wage bill, without considering the idea of transfer listing other players.

4. Always bring in a coach after the player recruitment exercise is over, not before. In fact, bring him in within two weeks of the start of the new season. After all, it isn’t necessary for the coach to spend enough time with the players before the season starts.

5. Criticize your coach in public. Never mind the fact that you brought the coach in yourself. Start blasting him when results go wrong, regardless of the fact that he needs time to get a good team in place, given the circumstances under which the coach is employed.

6. Never work with a long term plan. Always try to win and be reliant on gate proceeds, player sales, bank loans and sponsorship monies. In fact, do nothing to give your major sponsor any exposure. Just wait until the end of the month, and present an invoice to your title sponsor to collect your money.

7. Do not bother to properly manage information about the club. Go on radio stations live and speak without restraint and tact about all goings-on at your club. In fact, battle it out with your fellow management members and other people for the entire city to hear you live on radio. Never think about the consequences of your actions as per your club.

8. Delay payment of signing on fees for your new players. In fact, keep them in hotels for months and rack up a big bill for the club. Do not hire apartments or living quarters for the boys. After all, that would be too cheap, wouldn’t it?

Ah, I see that you are incredulous. But sadly, what I have enumerated above is precisely what is happening at Kumasi Asante Kotoko. The current management team does not seem to have any long-term plan for the team; regular invoices are presented to title sponsor TIGO every month for cash, even though there is no attempt by the management to maximize exposure for TIGO. As a result, TIGO have already stopped advertising in the official mouthpiece of the club, Kotoko Express and chances are that TIGO may pull the plug on the sponsorship deal with the club itself.

In addition, information is not managed properly at the club with certain management members airing certain personal grievances against each other and against certain journalists and even as I write, certain players are yet to be paid their signing on fees and are still residing in hotels, waiting to be resettled by the club, and some management members have already began publicly questioning the credentials of the club coach Paa Kwesi Fabin because Kotoko have not had a very good start to the season. Again, Ben Nti, who is probably the most educated amongst the management team is gradually being sidelined and he is threatening to resign, and currently, the club is living from hand to mouth. Also, Paa Kwesi is rumoured to be gradually losing patience with the management and may leave if things go from bad to worse.

Commercially, nothing is being done to raise funding for the club and so the hope is that any player can attract a transfer fee of at least $500,000 to cover costs. There is no plan for self-sustainability and very soon, the club could go bankrupt. Against this backdrop, perhaps the decision to play in Africa could prove to be an unwise one because there is no indication that the team can actually make it into the money zone and there are no ready sources of revenue to cater for the expenditure, should Kotoko fail to make the group stages.

At the risk of sounding very controversial, I firmly believe that a great error was made in appointing the current management team because they have failed to show the needed administrative expertise in running the club so that soon the club would be self-sustaining in the next few years. In fact, one of the management members is alleged to have blown 11,000 Ghana Cedis on ‘ways and means’ towards the back end of last season. Where is Kotoko going?

All I can say is that the Owner and Life Patron of the Club, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II will have to act and act fast by getting professionals to run the club as a corporate entity instead of an edifice of ridicule and amusement because that is what the club is looking like now. If this is not done, the club, once the most feared in Africa, could soon sink into the doldrums of obscurity and may one day be no more, because money may talk, but us tried and tested business ethics talks even louder. So will Kotoko be run effectively, or is the club being run into the ground? I leave you to judge.