Management For Kotoko Soon

In his unflagging quest to see Asante Kotoko leap from the morass of unprofessional management to one that befits the status of his club, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II will in the next few days name a new management team to superintend and steer the club to an appreciable height.

The truncated tenure of the P. V. Obeng-chaired Board of Directors is what has occasioned Otumfuo's naming of a new management team to chart a new course aimed giving Asante Kotoko the capacity to rub shoulders with the best on the continent and beyond.

Sources close to Manhyia have hinted myghanafootball.com that arrangements towards naming a new management for the club have reached an advanced stage, adding that the Asantehene could come out with the names of the new management team of Asante Kotoko by Saturday.

But myghanafootball.com has also been informed that the new management would be named only after Asamoa Bonsu & Co (Chartered Accountants) have audited the proper accounts of the club under P. V. Obeng. It is however unclear whether that assignment given the auditors have been completed.

Ahead of the official announcement of the management team, names such as Sylvester Asare Owusu, Jerry Asare, Ali Maradona, Kwame Amoah-Baah Nuako and Kweku Ahenkan alias Cash B are being bandied about as possible members of the soon-to-be announced new management of Kotoko, but all these names are in the realms of speculation.

It would be recalled that on Monday January 12, 2004, the Asantehene inducted a 13-member board chaired by P. V. Obeng.

The Asantehene charged the erstwhile board to fashion out a long-term strategic planning and development of the club, draw a five-year development plan with the objective of creating new avenues for profit enhancing projects to strengthen the welfare, managerial, financial and infrastructural base of the club and to appoint a Chief Executive, who together with his management team will be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the club and be accountable to the Board of Directors.

However, when the board appeared before the Asantehene a fortnight ago to render account of their almost three-year stewardship of the club, he did not mince words in telling them they failed to live up to his expectations.

What the board could not do, the Asantehene and followers of the club will expect the incoming management to do, and to consolidate whatever gains were made since 2004.
Asante Kotoko has since early 2003 undergone different managements for various reasons.

In February 2003, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II dissolved the P.V. Obeng-chaired board and the Herbert Mensah management team as a result of the two parties failing to strike a good working relationship for the betterment of the club. After the dissolution of the two bodies, Otumfuo named a-seven member Interim Management Committee (IMC) chaired by Sylvester Asare Owusu to hold the fort until the appointment of a new board.

That IMC guided Asante Kotoko to its first premier league title after ten years, and was dissolved at the end of the season, after the recently 'dissolved' board assumed duty, and appointed Major (Rtd) Yaw Larson as Chief Executive.

Larson was however dismissed from office for reasons, which were left in the hands of speculation-hungry journalists and supporters, who did an excellent job in assigning reasons for that incident. While 'antagonists' of Major Larson claimed he was dismissed, his supporters claimed he resigned, citing interference by the board.