Are you wondering why Asante Kotoko and Hearts of Oak have not been able to transfer a player direct into the top flight league in Europe over the past few years? Have you asked yourself why the two grandfather clubs in the Ghana Premier League have been struggling to make mind boggling transfers? Do you wonder why North Africa and Asia have suddenly become the next football destination for young Ghanaian players?
The answers to these questions lie in two major factors; club leadership and connectivity.
Until recently, it had been a source of worry to me as to why Kotoko will send players to Lebanon to play on loan (not even outright transfer) while Hearts of Oak will release an average of thirteen players in the last four seasons to go free.
I set out on a journey to discover the brain behind Hearts and Kotoko's inability to dominate the transfer scene as their names dominate the local headlines and discovered that the managements of the two clubs have little or no knowledge about the roles they are playing in the clubs - round pegs in square holes.
Today, Dreams FC, Vision FC and Cheetah FC have become monumental examples for Hearts and Kotoko in terms of player transfers when it should have been the other way round. If after 105 and 81 years, Hearts and Kotoko can't be trailblazers but will learn from toddlers and infants, then no one should tell you there is a problem.
After speaking to three top football agents about the worrying trend, my hunger for information was quenched as I was told exactly what I wanted to hear.
Leadership of both Kotoko and Hearts wouldn't want to read his but the truth is that they are responsible for their club's poor transfers. They lack the cutting edge in getting the best for their players.
Leadership of the two club do not possess the needed managerial acumen and the technical know-how to secure better transfers for their players. We mustn't forget that no football Club can survive in our part of the world without making good transfers as the basic sources of revenue for teams in Ghana are transfers, gate proceeds and sponsorships, but the major one is the player transfer. So if a club is unable to manage that aspect effectively, then the financial struggle of that club will be unending.
The managements of the two sides (Hearts and Kotoko) have demonstrated to their fans and the football family that their thinking is only confined to the ninety minutes period when a game is played. Both teams do whatever is possible to win matches and afterwards it ends there. Football goes beyond that.
For instance, the new season will be starting soon and Kotoko and Hearts have all been signing new players but what is the transfer plan for the season? Which of the players are they buying because the clubs have a plan of selling such players to make bigger monies after the season? You will be shocked to know that at the end of the season, both clubs will release most of the players they are signing at the beginning of the season.
The game of football is synonymous to dynamism and can't be managed like an island. The management of the two sides must be able to think outside the box such that they will be able to secure good deals for their players to generate good monies for their sides.
The other side of the club's inability to secure good deals for their players is connectivity. Football is a world of its own. It has its own language and has its own environment. As a result, one needs to be in the environment to be able to thrive successfully there. A biker will get drowned if he attempts swimming unless he learns the art of swimming to perfection. And this is exactly what our football administrators must do (this cuts across).
Our football administrators are not well connected to good football agents. How do you run a football club without the contact just a single agent? Most club administrators do not even know how important it is to be connected to agents, yet they are managing clubs in this country.
There could even be room for progression if these administrators are ready to learn about what they are managing to be able to do it well but they will only resort to chastising, assaulting and vilifying journalists for telling them the truth. The internet today offers a great deal of opportunity for football administrators to get well connected to the millions of agents and intermediaries around the globe to give their clubs the other aspect of the game.
One thing I also realised during my interaction with the agents is that most Ghanaian clubs want quick money instead of what they will get in the future. Some of the clubs ask for close to a million dollars for a local player or more which pushes these agents away.
I raised an argument that players from the Francophone countries who bow to our players at the youth level develop into superstars while our promising talents rot in the country or end up playing mediocre leagues. The reason is simple; A good player with a bad agent will not develop but a bad player with a good agent is 99% sire of developing well.
Our clubs must look out for their connectivity and the history of most of these agents and what they wish for these players in future rather than what they (the clubs) will get today. The percentage of the onward transfer should be the major point of concern to clubs because that is where the real deal is and not the first transfer. Most clubs want to get their whole investment from the sale of a single player during his first transfer but that must not be the case.
A typical case study is the Majeed Waris story. Right To Dream Academy did not invest more than $50,000 in the development of Waris. They sold him to Hacken in Sweden for a fee alleged to be less than $500k and two years later, he was transferred to Spartak Moscow for a fee believed to be a little over €10m. Right To Dream Academy raked over €1m from that amount. This is the kind of future our clubs must look at and not the little they will make today.
There must be a strong link between club administrators and football agents and a successful marriage between the two bodies is the success of the game.
Football is not only the 90 minutes played on the field but it goes beyond that. We need to think outside the box.
By: Sheikh Tophic Sienu @desheikh1 on twitter