Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Prince Badu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Asante Kotoko the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Morifing Donzo 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Andile Zwane was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad14 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Asante Kotoko are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“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 Asante Kotoko, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
$6.8M. Fees like that buy a footballer and rent a debate: every touch will be measured against the number for a season at least.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Asante Kotoko until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Hasaacas moved on, Isaac Mintah reports back to Asante Kotoko, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The clock did what WAFA would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
Asante Kotoko spend $6.8M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $6.8M for Andile Zwane, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Morifing Donzo 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.
A 2‑0 win over Bechem United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
$6.8M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kabelo Mahlasela provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luther Manyama provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
He is going to Asante Kotoko, the club has $6.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Platinum Stars close the window on a squad of their own making
11 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The deal that would have taken Bongani Hlatshwayo to Moreirense has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Platinum Stars with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Somila Ntsundwana 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.
Platinum Stars asked and Crvena Zvezda 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Asante Kotoko people have started saying his name in the past tense.
$6.2M on the table at Platinum Stars. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asante Kotoko can pretend not to have heard.
Asante Kotoko offered $1.1M; 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Asante Kotoko they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Kwame Opoku 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.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Asante Kotoko have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Chippa United kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Platinum Stars will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The name of Andile Zwane has come up in conversations Platinum Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Orlando Pirates wanted more than $110.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Wandile Duba has, at Platinum Stars, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Andile Zwane and Platinum Stars agree another 4 years.
Platinum Stars have gone to Golden Arrows with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platinum Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kabelo Mahlasela was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ramahlwe Mothiba has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Siyabonga Kekana 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Platinum Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kabelo Mahlasela 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monza have kept their man, and Platinum Stars go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Evidence Mokoena has come up in conversations Platinum Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.