Over the last couple of weeks, I have been making enquiries into issues to do with Ghana Premier League champions Asante Kotoko.
This is a club that has won the last three Premier League campaigns and topped it off with a league and cup double last term.
Mas-Ud Dramani has been in charge of the club over the last two seasons and so it would be fair to say that he has delivered, in terms of trophy.
One of the sticks used to hit him, however, was his failure to get Asante Kotoko to progress very far in the CAF Champions league on two occasions. Indeed, he has not gotten past the second round.
Again, Dramani stands accused of being a bit too academic in his approach to issues on the pitch, which seemed to betray a lack of man management skills with certain players.
I say this on authority because checks I carried out revealed that some players were unhappy with the way they felt other players were being treated by way of contract issues.
Indeed, morale in camp was low ahead of the Hearts of Oak game in Kumasi and after another defeat was encountered in Obuasi against current league leaders Ashanti Gold, the die seemed cast.
The Opoku-Nti led management has since verbally asked him to step aside and now, David Duncan is set to take over as the club’s new head coach.
Personally though, I do not agree with the management’s decision to fire Dramani.
I would have thought that he would be given another chance because he has earned it. In his first two Premier League campaigns he has delivered three major trophies to the club and so, if there is a blip, he should have been given the chance to turn things around.
Look at Jurgen Klopp. Based on Dortmund’s disastrous first round form, many expected him to be sacked by now, but the club’s hierarchy stood by him and now the club is out of the relegation places following two consecutive wins.
After enjoying coaching stability over the last three seasons, the least that Asante Kotoko’s management team could have done was to give Dramani until the end of the season to turn things around. Unfortunately this wasn’t done and he is being asked to go.
Thanks to some contact I have had with the club, I happen to know that information easily leaks like a sieve from the club and this to me is a major root of most of the problems.
Players are not told to keep contract details confidential and as a result, it has brought a lot of jealousy amongst the players, some of whom feel that they are not being treated as well as others. That is the responsibility of the club’s hierarchy, which has not happened.
Also, even if I would have wished Dramani to stay on, I think he should have been bold enough to drop under-performing players in favour of the relatively younger ones.
For Dauda Mohammed to score after coming off the bench in two Premier League matches clearly shows that there is still untapped talent at the club despite the array of stars at the club (in Ghanaian terms of course).
I also feel that the Board of Directors have not worked very well with the Opoku Nti management and that is because of a specific reason.
The owner of the club and Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, probably meant well when he made Opoku Nti the acting General manager before reconstituting the Board, but that was a mistake that is today haunting the club.
It is a known fact that Opoku Nti is not the preferred choice of the Paul Adu Gyamfi-led Board, and as a result, both parties have so far failed to establish common ground in terms of raising funds and sponsorship for the club.
The end is chaos, especially regarding player contracts.
Asante Kotoko is supposed to be a gold mine, considering that it is one of Africa’s biggest footballing names (or was at one time), but archaic methods of management has set the club back many years and sacking Didi Dramani in my opinion is the equivalent of plastering a cut without applying methylated spirit and hot water.
The real issues lie in the way the club is being run and with the large following the club is supposed to have, why haven’t professionals been brought in to properly sell the club in terms of sponsorship?
Can we comfortably say that Opoku Nti and his team are the best administrative team to handle the club?
Why do we constantly hear cries of ‘no money’?
Why are players allowed to run their contracts down and when the time comes for renegotiations, it is almost as if a gun is being held to the club’s head?
Now Asante Kotoko wants to bring in David Duncan as the new head coach. I know David very well because he is a friend and I also know that he is unafraid of speaking his mind.
I am wondering that if Dramani has been asked to step aside despite his achievements with the club, then what would happen to Duncan, who is yet to win a Premier League title in Ghana (he was unlucky not to have done so with Ashanti Gold in 2010), when results do not look favourable? Will the management team have enough patience for him?
Duncan, by virtue of his past with Great Olympics and Hearts of Oak, will also divide opinion amongs supporters of the club and for me, even though he is one of Ghana’s most highly rated coaches, this move is a huge gamble, not just for Asante Kotoko but for Duncan himself.
It is a fact that some of the players Asante Kotoko recruited this season were not brought in by Dramani, but by certain powerful figures at the club who felt that the inclusion of such players would strengthen the club.
The end result is that mistrust is built between Dramani and some of the new recruits, who may not have been his choice and if he does not deem them fit enough to play, that will arouse the ire of the top guns.
I do not see Duncan standing for that, especially in terms of line up, so expect fireworks when that happens.
Duncan is a fiercely independent character who virtually worked his way to the top without connections and so he will want to be his own man in Kumasi.
Whether Asante Kotoko affords him that privilege only remains to be seen, but this appointment for me masks the real administrative problems plaguing the club.
I hope for the club’s sake that they have gotten this right even though I can’t help thinking that a great mistake has been made.
It would appear that Asante Kotoko wanted a scapegoat because of recent poor form, and unfortunately, Didi Dramani, despite what he has achieved with the club so far, has become that fall guy.
There are parallels with the situation with Bashir Hayford some years ago and only time will tell whether this was a right step by the club, or whether this is akin from moving from the frying pan to the fire.
