- ‘Put Last Season Behind Us’: Kotoko Chairman Calls for Stronger 2026/27 Campaign
Asante Kotoko Board Chairman James Osei Brown has urged the club’s players and technical team to draw a line under a disappointing 2025/26 Ghana Premier League campaign and focus on rebuilding the Porcupine Warriors into a competitive force ahead of the new season.
Kotoko endured a difficult campaign in which they finished eighth in the league, recording 13 wins, 10 draws and 11 defeats across 34 matches. The performance fell well short of the club’s expectations and prompted the board and management to apologise publicly to supporters while promising significant changes.
The season was also marked by considerable technical instability. Kotoko cycled through Karim Zito, Prince Yaw Owusu and Hamza Yaw Obeng as head coaches, with repeated changes on the bench contributing to questions about continuity, planning and the club’s broader football structure.
Osei Brown’s message is therefore about more than forgetting disappointing results. It reflects an attempt by the club’s leadership to reset expectations after a campaign in which performances ultimately failed to match Kotoko’s history, support base and ambitions.
The board had already acknowledged after the final league game that eighth place was “far below the standards, expectations, and ambitions” of the club and promised “decisive measures” to restore Kotoko to a position more consistent with its stature.
Those measures have included a restructuring of the technical operation. Former Netherlands international Stanley Menzo was appointed Director of Football in June, with Osei Brown describing the move as part of efforts to establish a more sustainable football structure rather than continue relying on repeated short-term changes.
“Stanley Menzo brings a rare combination of elite playing experience, proven leadership and genuine global perspective,” Osei Brown said at the time. “We are confident that his expertise will help us build a sustainable, winning structure of which our supporters can be proud of.”
Eric Tinkler has since taken over as head coach and has spoken similarly about planning, professionalism and restoring Kotoko’s competitive identity. The former South Africa international said the club had the capacity to achieve its objectives if the technical team and players maintained the required work ethic and preparation.
“This season, with our planning, with our preparation, with our professionalism, good work ethic, nothing stops us from achieving our goals, only ourselves,” Tinkler said. “The legacy I want to leave behind is obviously we make this not a sleeping giant but a live giant.”
The language of rebuilding will nevertheless have to be converted into greater stability on the pitch.
Kotoko’s difficulties last season were not simply the consequence of one bad run. By April, interim coach Prince Yaw Owusu had publicly conceded that the club’s title hopes were effectively over after a 4-0 defeat to Medeama, a result that dropped Kotoko from fourth to sixth and reinforced the extent of their decline during the latter stages of the campaign.
The club subsequently ended the season with a 2-1 home defeat to Swedru All Blacks, leaving Kotoko eighth in the final standings. The result ensured that a team accustomed to competing for major honours finished well outside the title conversation.
That makes the 2026/27 campaign an important test of the board’s restructuring.
Kotoko’s challenge is not merely to improve from eighth place but to demonstrate that the institutional changes introduced since the end of last season can produce consistency. A club can recruit new players and change coaches relatively quickly; building a coherent football structure usually takes longer.
The appointment of Menzo as Director of Football suggests management is attempting to address that structural weakness. A strong sporting director can provide continuity across coaching changes, oversee recruitment and ensure that player development and tactical philosophy are aligned with a longer-term plan.
Tinkler, meanwhile, arrives with the immediate responsibility of producing results under the intense pressure associated with one of Ghana’s largest clubs. He has acknowledged that expectation, saying Kotoko “need to achieve, we need to win, we need to get this club back where it belongs.”
The pressure is heightened by the changing competitive landscape of Ghanaian football.
Kotoko and Hearts of Oak no longer dominate the domestic game as they once did. Clubs including Medeama, Samartex and Bibiani Gold Stars have demonstrated that better organisation and continuity can challenge the historical advantage of Ghana’s two traditional giants.
For Kotoko, reputation therefore provides little protection against poor execution. The club’s history guarantees expectations but not points.
Osei Brown’s call to move beyond last season should consequently be read as both encouragement and warning. The 2025/26 campaign can be treated as history only if lessons from its coaching instability, inconsistent performances and failure to sustain a title challenge are reflected in the structure now being built.
Kotoko’s board has already promised supporters a stronger and more competitive team. The coming season will begin to show whether the changes made since May amount to a genuine institutional reset or another cycle of optimism following disappointment.
For the Porcupine Warriors, forgetting last season will be the easy part. Proving that the problems which produced it have actually been fixed will be much harder.
