As the nation struggles to find an antidote to that unhealthy incidence of matches involving Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Accra Hearts of Oak always resulting in the death of fans emerges a disclosure by Kotoko Chief Executive Sylvester Asare Owusu that would definitely help investigators in their work.

The latest disaster at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi on Feb 8 that resulted in six deaths was mainly attributed to overcrowding and the Kotoko boss has told the press that he sanctioned the scaling of walls by anxious fans that were prepared to pay and the cash was actually collected and handed over to him. Whether he got the face value of the actual cash collected in unorthodox manner is another matter, but my concern is his sense of judgment at that crucial moment. I submit that he was wrong. Those fanatics were scaling the walls since the stadium was full and tickets had been sold out and the chairman can easily be accused of backing wrong doing.

It is safe to assume that the chief executive’s first consideration was to maximize gate takings and this is what Arsenal Manager Arsene Wenger will call “putting finances in front of the sport”. Indeed, in this instance the Kotoko chief put finances in front of both the sport and safety of fans.

With this admission by Asare Owusu, the Police can feel justified in accusing the management of Asante Kotoko of contributing to the overcrowding at the stadium which left six people dead and many hospitalized. The Police known worldwide for their expertise in prosecutions said “the Kotoko management blatantly refused advice to close the gates when it was realized that the stadium was full”. This is a serious accusation.

The Police are further going to testify that the chief executive was himself holding a dustbin collecting money from a large number of fans as they scaled the wall into the stadium at the area behind the scoreboard.

Inspector Yusif Mohammed Tanko, Ashanti Regional Police PRO is on record as saying that the police arrested B.K.Asamoah, a Kotoko supporter who was collecting money from fans jumping the wall into the stadium. The culprit led the Police to the Kotoko chief executive who identified the gentleman as one authorized to undertake that exercise. Good grief.

The Kotoko chairman later explained his action on Kumasi based Angel FM radio station that when he had information that fans were scaling the walls, with what he described as the connivance of the security personnel he thought “the best option was for some dedicated supporters to use litter bins to collect the cash for the club because fans would have entered the stadium free of charge”.

The litter bin collection exercise is reported to have fetched Kotoko additional GHC820 but whether the Kotoko chief executive took the right decision or not will definitely form part of the work of a proposed commission by President John Atta - Mills to probe the whole incident when he is invited to give evidence.

The Committee will find in the archives that controversy has characterized matches between Kotoko and Hearts for decades. It is recalled that on May 1 1988, fans rioted at the end of the first round league match between the two clubs. Some installations at the stadium were damaged and the windscreens of some vehicles smashed

Even though an incident in Kumasi on Dec 10 1989 when four people were killed and 30 injured was a Kotoko- Hasaccas match and not Kotoko- Hearts encounter, it would still be of interest to trace the Saint Gyimah Kessie Commission report if the recommendations could be of any interest. And the biggest of them all - the Sam Okudzeto Commission report that probed Ghana’s biggest football disaster when 127 fans were killed after a league match between Hearts and Kotoko at the Ohene Djan Stadium on May 9 2001.

This writer was a member of that Presidential Commission and if I may not be accused of any conflict of interest, I would suggest that copies be made available to the general public. There are a lot of useful guidelines that would help in the organization of high profile matches especially the impending second round league match between Hearts and Kotoko at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra.

The sages say a stitch in time saves nine.