“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 The request is on a desk at BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Berekum Chelsea have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Emmanuel Wakaso. The answer from BA All Stars has not changed — yet.
The deal with Hasaacas is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
BA All Stars offered $28.0K; WAFA said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucky Letwaba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at BA All Stars will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason BA All Stars will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Heart of Lions moved on, Daniel Waris reports back to BA All Stars, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 88 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around BA All Stars people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Baba Amoah will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BA All Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Emmanuel Wakaso 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. BA All Stars have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emmanuel Wakaso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Bernard Nuhu is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Bernard Nuhu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. BA All Stars will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Position 10 on 39 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.85, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emmanuel Wakaso 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Samuel Bukari could afford to be generous.
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at BA All Stars is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
Kamaldeen Boateng 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
0‑3 to Liberty Professionals, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Samuel Bukari left the room before anybody could ask which.
Andre Partey 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.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Ernest Adjei
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around BA All Stars people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Heart of Lions for Emmanuel Wakaso 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.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Emmanuel Wakaso is on it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. BA All Stars have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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.
BA All Stars had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at WAFA, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 14 actions, 6.99, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emmanuel Wakaso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Samuel Bukari after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. BA All Stars will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” BA All Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Harrison Gyan 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nurudeen Abdulai and BA All Stars agree another 3 years.
Harrison Gyan 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.
“I did not go to Hearts of Oak to sit and watch. I want to come back to BA All Stars and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emmanuel Wakaso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Samuel Bukari could afford to be generous.
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.
Asante Kotoko left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Samuel Bukari to a room that had heard them before.
Andre Partey and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Abraham Gyan
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.