This whole week has been dominated by the FIFA ruling that Kotoko should pay fines to Dieter Schimdt and Adamu Mohammed.

I have had mixed feelings about all this and keep wondering why we are in this situation at this point in time. I happen to know a bit about the issues facing Kotoko right now and there is no doubt that we have major issues with finances.

We are now managing to sort out some of these old bills and then boom, these issues hit us in our face. It is very annoying.

You will recall that when K.K took over, he was even confronted with some bills as far back as 2002 from some hotels.

It was ridiculous. How have our past administrators managed the club and how have we actually managed things. I hope K.K will be chairman par excellence and will not leave such issues with the future administrators who will come and take over the club.

Clearly our paper work in the past has not been ideal and I think we have run things in adhoc form for too long. Chairmen and chief executives have left the club in acrimonious fashion and hardly leave on a good note and so the result is that nobody even cares to leave any proper handing over notes and so every new management that comes in, gets hit by surprises all the time.

It is time for things to change and now that K.K has given Kotoko a proper office with board rooms and other offices etc , it is my expectation that we will have some proper continuity in the future.

I believe this is what Otumfuo has been waiting for all these years so that gone are the days when Kotoko meetings were held in homes and hotels and documents may not have been properly filed like a proper corporate entity.

I am really tempted to take a swipe at the past administrators who went into contracts and did not honor their obligations and have brought us to where we are now. But I am cautious because I do not have the full details on what happened.

But surely, if the contracts we signed were water tight and if we had adhered to all exit clauses then we wouldn’t have been paying such a gargantuan fine.

What even annoys me more is the Adamu one where it is clear that we need to pay the development fee to a mother club anytime we transfer a player.

So we just refused to pay when we clearly knew that the law required us to pay? That is irresponsibility and I can’t forgive anybody who had the responsibility of paying that amount and simply refused because the contract fee was definitely paid.

You see the problem I think we have had at Kotoko over the years is that there is always a short term kind of thing in there and the executives never know when they will be kicked out so I think they run the club with short term success in mind and then if they are sacked then someone else has to deal with the consequences.

I strongly believe those things are behind us with K.K in charge and we will ensure that Kotoko is put on a proper footing.

So we have the issue on our hands and we need to pay the money. I know we are quite cash strapped and so K.K has an issue he has to grapple with. I have no doubt in my mind that we can raise debt to pay the money and then the challenge will be how to pay off the debt. What I totally disagree with is this ‘yi bi ma’ thing.

We have done it so many times and it has always been a problem with how we account for the money. There is no guarantee that this ‘yi bi ma money’ will get to the Kotoko coffers.

K.K should immediately withdraw the program. If we want the fans to help pay, the best way is to do it through the gates and the Banks so I agree with the publication of the bank accounts and I agree with the hiking of the gates fees though some will go to the sports council but that can be negotiated that the extra percentage be treated as a special contribution and not be charged by the sports council. What I disagree with is the coupons that people will go round with and take the money. That one has no guarantee of the money reaching Kotoko.

Last week we struggled to draw with Edubiase in Kumasi but the important thing was the fighting spirit that was exhibited to ensure we had the equalizer. Ashgold are now giving us a run for our money but I believe that as we focus and take it one match at a time, there is no doubt that we will win the league.

What I don’t want is when Kotoko goes to Obuasi. I hope that game will not be a crucial one and by that time we would have already won the league. We have come a long way in our relationship with Ashgold and I will hate to see it degenerate again.

 I remain your true red fabulous aficionado.

Kotoko Beku Me