Former Asante Kotoko CEO, Opoku Nti, has described his his tenure as head of the club’s management as a sacrificial job.
“Sacrificial job [was what] I did for Kotoko, and I did a lot,” he recalled in a Prime Take interview with JoySports Muftawu Nabila Abdulai that will air on Friday at 7:30 am, Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 11 am on JoyNews.
“You see, I took over from… even though I didn’t know it was going to happen, I took over from Dr KK Sarpong.
“I was part of his management. I was a special advisor to him, so when he resigned, Kotoko was about to get stuck because we needed to wait until a new appointment was made. So Otumfuo Osei Tutu II… I salute you, Nana.
“He called me and said I should steer the affairs until they put together the structures, which are the board and the management.”
Opoku Nti served as interim CEO for three months, during which he held one-on-one meetings with Otumfuo Osei Tutu II until a board was constituted.
However, his role remained undefined, and he found himself pre-financing the club’s activities.
“I did it for three months, I had meetings with him [Otumfuo] one-on-one and everything, until a board was constituted.
“The board was given to me [and] my job description up to now is a question mark,” he said.
He explained that, “What I knew was that the board was supposed to pre-finance the club but I was doing that myself though I thought it was the duty of the board.
The Porcupines legend clarifed that, “It was not my money, but I looked for money to finance the club, so it wasn’t easy because football is about time and money.”
Asante Kotoko has history of managers often alleging that they are owed money from running the daily affairs of the club, but Opoku Nti used an approach that would ensure he leaves the club debt-free.
“Wherever I got money from to finance the activities of the club, I made sure that we took it back. I also made sure that the money was used for its intended purpose so that no one could say we took the money and have not paid players for two months or three months.
“It never happened under my tenure because I knew for sure that if management pays salaries and winning bonuses on time, it gives the players a good frame of mind to also do their job.
“All these were fantastic. It was going well.”
Under the leadership of Opoku Nti, Asante Kotoko won the Ghana Premier League title and the FA Cup in 2014. He attributed the success to stable management and a technical team.
“Immediately I took over they wanted to sack the coach [Didi Dramani] but I said no we need to maintain the coach because he has taken them through training for a while and he knows the boys.
