Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Liberty Professionals they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Liberty Professionals have made the call to Mamelodi Sundowns. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Bayelsa United have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Liberty Professionals people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Liberty Professionals had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Remo Stars, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Daniel Djiku and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Liberty Professionals have made the call to Nasarawa United. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Liberty Professionals have made the call to Heart of Lions. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Mohammed Afful keeps the shirt for now, at Liberty Professionals's convenience rather than his own.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Liberty Professionals have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Wa All Stars for Mohammed Afful was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Liberty Professionals have done the hard part with Aduana Stars, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniel Djiku and Liberty Professionals agree another 4 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Liberty Professionals asked and Rangers International said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Daniel Djiku was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The name of Kamaldeen Kyereh has come up in conversations Liberty Professionals were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
A loan enquiry to Rangers International: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
In brief
The dugoutDaniel Djiku asks for a word with the manager