Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AS Police know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
SquadQuestions about Malick Berthé on the training pitch
6Edition
The AS Police Sentinel
7 Sep 2026
From our football correspondentSteady
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at AS Police 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ulinzi Stars have kept their man, and AS Police go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
AS Police asked and KCB 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 had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Djoliba keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Bamako have kept their man, and AS Police go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. AS Police will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. AS Police know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
The deal with Stade Malien 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.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. AS Police will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
AS Police have made the call to Stade Malien. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It is a strip of cloth and it decides nothing on a Saturday. It still tells the dressing room exactly whose opinion the manager values, which is the whole point of it.