By Raymond Yeboah
I wish to withdraw some comments passed in paragraph 3 of my
article: B/A United players and coaches dying of hunger published on Ghanaweb
(http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/SportsArchive/artikel.php?ID=267758)
and Sports in Ghana last week.
I wish to hereby retract the statement: “The purpose of his
take-over of the team is because he was thinking of using the team as
collateral for huge bank loans but in actual fact he is just making a mockery
of the supporters of the club,” and hereby declare that I did not intend any
malice.
I did not mean his intention to take over the team was to get bank
loans as has been implied in certain quarters. I only mean to say that he did
not have enough money to take over the running of a big club with big expenses
like B.A. United.
Indeed I want to stress that current developments within the team
shows how ineffective they are to manage a team as BA United as I intended to
explain in my article. The coach, David Amoah has quit the club to vindicate my
article that because only part of his enticement fee was paid, no salary
according to him.
Even he was subjected to humiliation at two guest houses he was
made to reside at by the club’s management, his personal belongings were seized
as a result of non-payment of accommodation fee. So if a coach suffers like
this at the hands of the so called CEO and his management, you can only imagine
what the playing body are going through.
I still stand by my point that the team’s current league position
and this latest technical discrepancies means Sttugart must honourably resign, he
has failed.
I hereby below reproduce the article again without the ‘fateful’ paragraph
3:
BA United are in trouble! After the taking over of the team by
Kwabena Kyere Stuttgart, many were of the view that he was going to help the team
rise from the doldrums but information reaching Ark Sports indicate that the
players are not getting enough support from the management.
One of the players approached me amid screaming of hunger because he had not
eaten for one week. The team owes the players almost 5 months of unpaid
salaries including the technical team. Stuttgart, thought initially the name
B/A United was going to fetch the team enough money so he came with bare hands
and nothing. If you don't have money, you don’t have to force yourself to go
and lead a team like B/A United.
B/A United is no longer an enticing team to attract any loan or sponsorship
from any organization.
The most annoying aspect is that he has formed another club, Young
Apostles, a division two club knowing he can’t pay even the division 2 team. I
always says that a sports journalist can't handle a football team because they
are thrifty in nature. Micky Charles set that bad example there for all to see
but B/A United did not take advice from that and appointed Stuttgart too. B/A
United must be sold to an external person or body of persons who can use their
own money to turn around the flagging fortunes of the team.
I supported Stuttgart at first but later on realised he was not doing the team
any good based upon the management team he named to help his administration. Where
is the communication director of the club? He is no longer in Sunyani where the
club is based.
Stuttgart is a failure, the earlier he resigned the better because the position
of the club on the division one league log currently foretells how badly the
team will become if he continues as a CEO.