The intriguing story of Kwame Arhin, a staunch supporter of Kumasi Asante Kotoko Football Club who got crippled three days after destroying talisman and amulets belonging to Ivorian goalkeeper Alain Gouamene in an Africa Cup match between Asec of Abidjan and Asante Kotoko in Kumasi, has revived the age old debate whether juju or voodoo does exist in football.

The incident happened as far back as 1993 and Arhin has kept the story to close friends until recently when one of them hinted the new Kotoko management who quickly paid him an official visit on behalf of the club and made some undisclosed cash donation.

The Kotoko- Asec match in question was the second leg semi finals of the Africa Cup for champion clubs. Kotoko had lost the first leg 3-1 and needed to score at least two unanswered goals to sail into the final. The same Ivorian side had eliminated Kotoko from the previous year’s tournament at the quarter- final stage. Rumours were all around that the Ivorians had cast a spell on Kotoko and that alerted some Kotoko fans to nose round to find a possible source of the so called super natural power of the Ivorians.

A day to the match when the visiting teams were training at the Kumasi stadium, Arhin the inquisitive spotted the goalie planting some strange objects at the centre of the pitch. After the training, Arhin led a group of supporters to dig out those planted strange objects that included amulets and talismans and he personally set fire on them.

Come Sunday the day of the match and Kotoko had it tough matching the Ivorians as they kept missing begging chances.

Arhin then tells his story; “At half time one of the ball boys alerted me that the Asec goalkeeper had placed some blood stained pair of hand gloves in the middle of his goal post. Superstitious as I am, I believed strongly it was the reason why Kotoko were finding the game tough. I volunteered and sneaked behind the Asec goalpost to pick the gloves away”.

“I went to the same place where we had burnt the talismans the day before. And true to my belief, Kotoko found the net as soon as I set fire to the blood soaked gloves. Before I got back to the stands, Kotoko had scored a second goal that sailed the team to the finals.

It was a night of celebration for Kotoko supporters and Kwame Arhin believed strongly he had indirectly contributed to Kotoko’s success.

Two days after the match, something mysterious happened to Arhin, a taxi driver by profession when two gentlemen he described as French speaking, hired his taxi. After some rounds in the city, he woke up on a hospital bed at the Komfo Anokye Teching Hospital. He was told he had been in a coma for the past three days. Since then Arhin has remained in a wheel chair.

According to Arhin, he has sought numerous spiritualists for help but the verdict is that those two passengers in his taxi were spirits from Cote d’Ivoire who had come to Ghana to seek vengeance for the burning of the talismans.

Hear Arhin,”my last attempt at seeking spiritual help did not go well as the prophetess who had managed to make me sit after two years of immobility one day shouted for help whilst praying for me”. Prophetess Auntie Mansah of Mpasatia, near Kumasi told people who rushed to the scene that she felt like being hit at the neck with a club. She was pronounced dead on arrival in hospital.

Arhin says following the death of Auntie Mansah coupled with so many inexplicable happenings to spiritualists who have tried to cure him; he has resigned himself to his fate and taken solace in the joy that he sacrificed his life for Kumasi Asante Kotoko, his darling football club.

Football fans now affectionately call Arhin, “Kotoko nti” an Akan phrase loosely translated meaning ‘” for the sake of Kotoko”.

This story published in “Kotoko Express”, the official mouthpiece of Asante Kotoko Football Club has generated a lot of debate about the role juju plays in the game of football.

Is it real or just a myth?Join the debate and keep loving sports.