Hearts Vow to Hold On to Taylor

...Even after the player's open declaration of love for Kotoko

Accra Hearts of Oak are once again grappling with having to battle to retain a star player after Charles Taylor openly declared his affection for eternal rivals Asante Kotoko.

Taylor's declaration that he has resigned from Kotoko has infuriated the Phobians who have vowed to hold on to the player, even if it means jeopardising his career.

Hearts chief executive Tommy Okine and senior Hearts management members have put on a brave face on Taylor's Kumasi declaration but have also said in plain terms that they wouldn't allow Taylor to go to Kotoko without a fight.

Okine, in keeping with the trend in football, played down the impact of Taylor's departure on Hearts but insisted the striker could be left to rot at Hearts.

He said Taylor's exit will affect Hearts in no way in their bid to win a seventh straight league title. "It won't," Okine insists, "mean the end of the world for Hearts".

Hearts, he argues, has always produced great players and are well placed to engineer the emergence of another thrilling star in Taylor's absence.

Okine is also adamant that Hearts will do everything possible to ensure Taylor's absence from Hearts will mean an absence from the Ghanaian local scene in the foreseeable future.

Okine says Hearts have an agreement with Taylor that binds the player to the club for the next three years, which they will insist on.

Taylor signed that contract worth ?100 million on March 7, and has already collected ?50 million for it.

Taylor is however insisting that he doesn't want to play for the Phobians again. The two-time most valuable player of the premier league says he has lost the motivation to keep on playing for Hearts and has written to the club, demanding a transfer to Kotoko.

He and his team, from everything going on, have no respect for the contract he has signed. The player's manager, Jonathan Badu, told Chronicle last Friday that the contract has no weight because he took no active part in the negotiations.

He points out that there is a clear understanding between himself and Hearts that he must be actively involved in any contractual negotiations before any agreement with the player can be considered valid.

With Hearts determined not to let the player go, and the player's own willingness to quit, the stage could be set for another long drawn-out transfer tussle between the two sides.

Kotoko officials have generally kept quiet on the issue but they are quietly confident they have secured the services of arguably the most thrilling player on the local scene today.

Taylor was at the Ridge training grounds of Kotoko in Kumasi last Friday morning and evening, and later signed a document that Kotoko officials are insisting demonstrates beyond dispute, his commitment to play for the club.

As Hearts have proved in the past, a player denouncing them publicly means very little, and the club is likely to fight on till they emerge the victors in the latest transfer saga.

The good thing for them is that they have the law on their side as most analysts say. Though the player's preference would be a strong factor in where he goes eventually, the fact that he has signed a contract extension would be critical in the cause of the Phobians.

It is a bit out of place in the football world that Taylor would agree on personal terms with Kotoko before a transfer is agreed upon between the two principal clubs.

So sure are Hearts of their case that they are threatening to take the matter all the way up to FIFA.

If it doesn't get that far, there is every possibility Hearts would quote a huge transfer fee for the player they bought at ?150 million from Olympics three years ago.

That transfer also had more than its share of controversy. Kotoko was Taylor's stated choice but the Porcupine Warriors failed to land the player, after a last minute swoop by the Phobians.

That victory for Hearts on the transfer market, over their bitterest rivals, was one of the many that the Phobians have chalked over Kotoko. Despite Emmanuel Osei Kuffuor's public declaration that he would never play for Hearts two seasons back, the Phobians never sold him to Kotoko. Hearts again held their own in the battle over Dan Oppong.

Now they face their biggest challenge yet for a player against the Porcupine Warriors.