It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at BA All Stars is running low.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mohammed Nuhu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BA All Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The phone has started ringing about Baba Atiemo again, and this time the name on the line is ENPPI. BA All Stars are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Abeiku Djiku has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Hearts of Oak pay $11.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BA All Stars they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what BA All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at BA All Stars is running low.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. BA All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what BA All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Ezequiel Bustamante 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 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at BA All Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at BA All Stars can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what BA All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Ezequiel Bustamante 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.
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Albert Schlupp has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at BA All Stars.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Kwame Bukari falls out with a teammate over standards
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 change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Ezequiel Bustamante's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ezequiel Bustamante and BA All Stars agree another 2 years.
Ezequiel Bustamante 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Kwame Bukari falls out with a teammate over standards
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 change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Ezequiel Bustamante's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
In brief
MarketAndrew Djiku returns from a loan that gave him nothing
BoardroomBA All Stars pull $97.2K back off the table
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Abeiku 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 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.
The mood at BA All Stars has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at BA All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at BA All Stars, and 0 appearances in 29 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwame Bukari is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Ezequiel Bustamante 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.
6 goals in one match, Harrison Gyan on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of BA All Stars and Ashanti Gold.
Marked 8.36 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Kwame Bukari falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at BA All Stars, another week without a signature from Daniel Boakye.