Kotoko's “22nd league title” challenged, it's 21st, says sports journalist

Kumasi Asante Kotoko could not have won their 22nd league title on Sunday when they virtually sealed this year's Glo Premier League title. That is according to football statistician and historian, Thomas Freeman Yeboah.

Freeman Yeboah insists the win should take Kotoko's conquests to 21, if the records available are anything to go by. Virtually every sports report credits Kotoko with a 22nd cup success.

But setting the records straight on Asempa FM, Thomas Freeman said Kotoko were crowned as league winners of 1967/1968 season and not twice in both 1967and 1968 because it was a single season.

Supporting his facts with documents from '67 and '68 Daily Graphic stories on the league, Thomas Freeman explained that Kumasi Asante Kotoko were league leaders when the league went on a long break which historians counted as a league title for Kotoko before the club was eventually declared winners by end of the abridged league due to climatic conditions at the time.

He said the league resumed in the second round from Week 19 where the first round ended and finally abridged due to climatic conditions at the time.

He again said that with two outstanding matches to go, Kotoko were leading the table with 47 points while the second-placed team, Accra Hearts of Oak followed with 41 points before Kotoko were crowned league winners.

Freeman insisted Kotoko's leagues triumphs have previously been in 1959; 1963/64; 1964/65; 1967/1968; 1969; 1972; 1975; 1980; 1981; 1982; 1983; 1986; 1987; 1988/89; 1990/91; 1991/92; 1992/93; 2003; 2005; 2007/08.

Should Kotoko be declared champions this year, the tally should be 21 and not 22 as put out by some reports.

Interestingly, it was Thomas Freeman Yeboah who during the 2012 Nations Cup, corrected the wrong assertion that Emmanuel Agyeman Badu's goal against Guinea was Ghana's 100th Nations Cup goal.

It turned out that Skipper John Mensah's goal against Tunisia in the quarter-final was Ghana's 100th goal.

The PLB Chairman, Welbeck Abra-Appiah when confronted with the challenge, said the FA was compiling its record and will soon make a declaration of the number of times Asante Kotoko has won the league.