Herbet mensah To Stay On As CEO?

Kumasi Asante Kotoko’s flamboyant chief executive, Mr. Herbert Mensah’s decision to quit at the end of the current premier season as chief executive of the club caught many followers of the game by surprise. Many are those who think that the man has done such a great job for the porcupine warriors, by making them the most financially viable club in the country, as well as having taken the club to the semi-finals of African cup winners’ cup, for the first time in the nation’s history, and therefore needs to continue with the good work. Mr. Mensah’s detractors are, however, quick to accuse him of having won more enemies for Kotoko than he has won friends, and to them, running Kotoko should not be a one – man show as it currently seems. Whatever people’s perception about Mr. Herbert Mensah, the fact cannot be denied that his innovative, as well as his extraordinary business acumen has catapulted Kumasi Asante Kotoko into a class of their own. At a time when the GFA was struggling, knocking from door-to-door, appealing to corporate entities to sponsor the 2002 premier league season, following GBL’s last-minute decision to pull out of the 850 million cedis sponsorship of the entire league, the porcupine warriors had already secured a 900 million cedis worth of sponsorship from Spacefon, a mobile telecom company, as well as kit sponsorship deals with Ulsports and erima. There are companies like Simnet- Ghana, which still has links with Kotoko and reports filtering in indicates that come next season, the club would be signing a kit sponsorship deal with PUMA, a package expected to take Kotoko to another level.

It is Mr. Mensah’s efforts at making Kotoko a viable brand, for corporate organisations to associate themselves with, as well as the club’s recent success on the field, that have signalled to most followers of the club that Kotoko would be better of with Herbert Mensah as Chief Executive, and have been making frantic appeals for him to stay on.

At a recent meeting with the club’s most vocal and die-hard supporters at the Suame Magazine in Kumasi, pleas were put forward by various speakers for Mr. Herbert Mensah not to leave Kotoko at a time when all the good works he has done for the club is about to bear fruits. Indeed, these passionate pleas seem to have touched the heart of the chief executive and in his recent media encounters, he seems to be softening his earlier position of bidding Kotoko farewell at the end of the season.

Mr. Herbert Mensah says that whether he leaves or not depends on what Otumfuo Opoku-Ware says, and if the great king, who is the club’s Life Patron wants him to stay on, he’ll be nobody to show disrespect to the golden stool. On the other hand, if Otumfuo wants me to go, in order for others to come and improve on what we’ve done over the year’s, I’ll do so with humility and satisfaction’’, Mr. Mensah says.