Kotoko Board Decides Razak’s Fate Today

THE Board of Directors of Kumasi Asante Kotoko would today take a final decision on head coach Abdul Razak, following the controversy that has erupted over his stay with the team.

Mr Kwabena Kesse, aka Kessben, board member who confirmed this in an interview said the board which met yesterday round off its deliberations in Accra today and would definitely come up with a decision to put the Razak issue to sleep.

Until that time, Mr Kesse said coach still remains in control of the team.Reports in a section of the media, including the official mouthpiece of Asante Kotoko, the Kotoko Express, last Monday said that Razak had resigned, creating some form of confusion within the Kotoko Family as people believed it could create problems for the club when they confront arch rivals, Hearts of Oak, in their Coca-Cola Top 4 encounter in Accra on Sunday.

Mr Kesse refuted allegations that the board forced Razak to resign from the club.According to him, after Kotoko lost to King Faisal in Kumasi last Sunday, the board immediately summoned him and other members of the technical team to an emergency meeting to find out what really went wrong.

At the meeting, Razak made it clear that for personal reasons he wanted to resign with immediate effect. Mr Kesse said the board asked him to submit a letter to that effect but he has since not done so.The board member said they were, therefore, surprised to read from a section of the media the following day that the board had forced the coach to resign.

He indicated that even though the board has plans to engage a foreign coach for the club, they have not arranged with anybody now to take over the club. Mr Kesse, therefore, dismissed allegations that the board had brought a white man to coach the team.When it was pointed out to him that a white coach had been present at the Ridge Training grounds to interact with the players, Mr Kesse said the board was not aware.

More so, the board had not asked anybody to go out to look for a coach for Kotoko, he said.Coach Razak is meanwhile preparing the team for their match against Hearts on Sunday and it would be interesting to see whether tomorrow’s decision by the board would see his exit or confirm his stay.

But from all indications Razak will not coach Kotoko for the next season.It was reliably learnt that Razak prepared his resignation letter last Monday but was stopped from submitting it to the board following the intervention of the owner of the club, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

During the inauguration of the Kotoko Board a couple of weeks ago, Otumfuo Osei Tutu stated categorically that Razak be made to continue with his work until the new management committee that would be put in place determines his status.