138 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.
Wa All Stars arrived with $110.0K and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Baba Amoah has gone, the accounts have $110.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Asante Kotoko have kept their man, and BA All Stars go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. BA All Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutAlbert Bukari knocks on the manager's door
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Canon Yaounde waiting with a shirt. Nobody at BA All Stars is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at WAFA is saying, and nobody at BA All Stars is enjoying the guessing.
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.
The name of Baba Amoah has come up in conversations BA All Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Asante was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Medeama is saying, and nobody at BA All Stars is enjoying the guessing.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Patrick Asante and BA All Stars agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
a squad player 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Abia Warriors have kept their man, and BA All Stars go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Asante was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yaw Sulemana trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 phone has started ringing about Patrick Asante again, and this time the name on the line is Canon Yaounde. BA All Stars are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Kamaldeen Inusah has his answer from BA All Stars; what he does with it is the next window’s story.