The writing was clearly on the wall. The days of Coach Bashiru Hayford with Kumasi Asante Kotoko as coach were numbered. The events following Kotoko’s unexpected 2-2 draw in the CAF Confederation Cup match at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium that effectively ended the club’s championship dreams in October, were an indication that danger was ominously looming in the horizon.

Fans rioted at the end of the match in question. The Beninois referee was unsportingly heckled and Coach Bashiru Hayford’s life was threatened by irate Kotoko fans. And to add confusion to disbelief, the coach unceremoniously abandoned post and left Kumasi for his home town Tema, the harbour city nearly 200 kilometres from Kumasi. For days, there were no contacts between him and the Kotoko management.

The coach did not bother to make any reports to the Kotoko management about his plight and the management also did not care to look for their head coach, even though the club had a pending CAF Confederation Cup match against El Merreikh of Sudan.
When Coach Hayford resurfaced in Kumasi a few days to the trip to Sudan, he described his sudden disappearance from Kumasi as a “tactical retreat” since his life was in danger and he was conscious of the fact that he had lost his wife not too long ago.

The Kotoko management was obviously not amused by Hayford’s demeanour and they flew the team to Sudan without him. Assistant coach, Johnson Smith was in charge when Kotoko lost the match 2-1 to place an uncharacteristic bottom of the group table behind Etoile du Sahel of Tunisia, El Merreikh of Sudan and JSK Algiers.

On return from the ill fated trip to Sudan, tension appeared to be in camp but the club summoned enough courage to face Liberty Professionals in the final of The GHALCA Top Four at the Baba Yara Stadium but lost narrowly 1-0 after their trade mark litany of missed chances.

As fans were gearing up for the next season and anxious to hear of recruitments to strengthen the team, came the sudden announcement that Kotoko were planning to sign on a new foreign coach. Within 48 hours of the news outbreak, the deal had been completed and now Asante Kotoko has unveiled a new coach in the person of Maurice Cooreman from Belgium who is on a two-year contract. In fact he has started work.

The Belgian has an interesting background. He has more than 10 years of experience in African football having been based in Nigeria for most part of his career on the continent.

Apart from being technical director for two time African champions Eyimba, until his appointment he had been in charge of Bendel Insurance, Lobi Stars and Gabros International. Typical of most expatriate coaches in Africa, the Belgian is hot tempered. In April this year, he was banned for five matches for attacking a referee during a titanic clash.

In 2006, he was fired by his club, Ocean Boys and re-appointed after just two weeks in a move that made wild headlines in Nigeria.

If the Belgian is familiar with wild headlines, then he would be very much at home with Asante Kotoko arguably the biggest club in Ghana, which makes the headlines every second whether for good or bad .It is only unfortunate that the gentleman he is coming to replace did not appear to be managed properly by management.

Bashiru Hayford had been complaining for the past two years that he only had a “verbal contract” with Kotoko and that his emoluments had continued to be a subject of controversy.
Now his fate seems to be in the balance. In the words of Kotoko’s spokesman Baah Nuako, “Hayford has been offered the opportunity by the new coach to work with him”. It is not clear in what capacity Bashiru is expected to work, but what seems clear is that management does not need his services.

This episode will revive the perennial debate on Ghanaian coaches and contracts. I will treat this topic in full in future, but in the meantime readers are encouraged to send their comments to me to generate a discussion.

For those who are interested in records this is the third foreign coach in recent times to train Kotoko- Ralph Zumdick (Germany), Dietar Schmidt (Germany) and Selat Uzum (Turkey).