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Speech delivered
by Dr. K. K Sarpong at the unveiling of Coach Ebo Mends and the
Board’s press conference.
Transcribed by David Kyei
Ladies and gentlemen of the press,
we have invited you here for two reasons and we will go through
them as quickly as possible.
First, we have invited you here
today to announce to you that after carefully assessing the
various applicants to the position of a head coach of Kotoko,
the board of directors have settled on an illustrious son of the
land and former player of our club.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to
you Mr. Ebo Mends. I am happy to give him his jersey and will
add that he is not coming to play again, but is coming to direct
us.
Ebo, we are very pleased to
appoint you as our coach, and we are very confident in you. I
must say that the board is 100% confident in him.
To those supporters who had other
ideas on a coach, the choice has been made. All of us have to
burry our differences and rally behind Mr. Ebo Mends to deliver
the goods.
We are very hopeful that he will
have an enjoyable stay with us as the time has come for him to
pay back his due.
I hand over to him his instrument
of appointment (appointment letter) and I want to indicate it is
for an initial period of two years and other conditions have
been agreed with him if the need for changes should arise. We
are very grateful to him for accepting to coach our great club.
The second part of today’s session
is to let the media houses, our teaming supporters and other
stake holders be aware of some of the challenges that we face
and the ideas that we are going to grapple with.
At the inauguration of the board,
His Majesty Otumfuo, charged us to come and build structures,
develop a strategic plan for about three years and see whether
we can turn the fortunes of the club around.
Indeed, immediately after the
inauguration, the press accosted me and wanted to know what
vision I had for the club. My answer was very simple. The new
board did not know the state of the club, neither does vision
lie with one person. Therefore I requested to be given time for
us to liaise with the Interim Management Committee and
thereafter be in the position to let you know what we may be
able to do.
We have had the status report from
the existing management and all that I can sum up is that, the
challenges are quite formidable. We have a long way to go.
The fortunes of the club have
plummeted; supporters have lost hope and indeed the supporters’
base has disintegrated.
For us the new board, we need to
repair what is broken and fix and bring the club back to its
winning ways.
There is a new dawn. Things are
going to be done professionally and we have already given
indications to that already by the way and manner we have out-doored
our coach.
We beg the press houses please not
to peddle untruths that is very unhelpful to the development of
the club and that sows a lot of discord amongst the teaming
supporters of the club, management and all well-wishers. That is
destroying the club.
We request you to seek the right
information from the secretariat and not to go on air or the
print media just speculating, casting insinuations, knocking
heads with a view to destroy our great club.
We are first of all going to build
structures right down from the secretariat through to the
playing body.
I can assure you that the board
and management will not interfere in the work of the coach. As
chairman, I have had a chat with the coach and given him all the
assurances his will be to deliver the goods and give us good
results.
I want to repeat it here for all
to hear us and to know, that I have told the coach to bring to
my attention interferences from management and the board, so
that appropriate measures can be taken to give him his peace to
work.
Indeed, if he is unable to
deliver, the right course of action will be taken.
There are number of issues that we
are dealing with, and I am sure at the appropriate time, some
details will come up.
We want to run the club on sound
commercial lines. This requires that we re-brand the club and
undertake business investments and initiatives to generate
money. Won’t supporters be happy to go to the stadium and drink
water branded Asante Kotoko so that we can make money?
Won’t you patronize an FM radio
station that we will establish? Why wouldn’t you go and buy our
newspaper so that we can make money?
We have a strong brand that is
known worldwide and we need to capitalize on the brand, improve
and re-invigorate the brand so that we bring in a lot of money
to help run the club.
Options will be developed and
considered, and even joint ventures will be pursued with
interested parties. I will be sending all these details to the
board for them to deliberate and accept them into our strategic
plan so that we can move our club forward.
Just one example: if we have an
Asante Kotoko health centre where we have a gym also a clinic,
wont supporters be patronizing it? Apart from the fact that our
supporters will be using those facilities, it is a private
initiative where we can get our supporters to attend the clinic
from where we can also make some money.
Let me assure all our supporters
that the revenue that we generate will be protected. This board
will ensure all monies are properly used and accounted for and
is my desire that wee will be the first club to issue a
published annual report in the next season.
We will give an account of what we
have done a well as the financial statement for supporters to
know where their monies have gone.
I am glad to announce that the
supporters have agreed to assist us in our revenue generation
drive and have therefore agreed that their members will be
making contributions in the form of dues and the initial amount
we have agreed on is a minimum GH¢2 per year.
We can do these when organize
ourselves into effective circles so that we can mobilize the
money and send to the secretariat. If you contribute your money,
wont you demand accountability? You certainly will and the board
assures you that we will do just that.
Meanwhile, to supporters who do
not join circles, we have nominated some banks and would be
posting their details where people with their contribution will
go and pay in for the benefit of the club.
There are other things we will do
which require money. We need to build an ultra modern
secretariat. A building of our own to show for our stature. I
hear some Egyptian came to Ghana and they wanted to see the
Asante Kotoko that they are aware of as having robbed shoulders
with their top most clubs back in Egypt.
They found out to their
disappointment that we did not even have a secretariat let alone
have a place to display the trophies that we have won over the
years.
This certainly is what we have set
out to do and this can be done easily from your contributions,
player transfers and sponsorship from tiGO.
It is my wish that the tenure of
this board will at least see the initiation of a players village
where a housing scheme to house our place would be in place.
Presently, I am told the rents of most players is past due and
we haven’t paid and so they are facing ejection from their land
lords and we don’t want that to happen.
The money we use to pay rent can
be channelled into our own development projects.
The challenges are enormous but I
believe that with dedication, commitment and unity, we will be
able to conquer.
We are here to move the club from
good to great and we are also going to build for it to last.
Thank you very much. |
