Hindsight: Legon Cities’ five years of fugazi money

Every Ghana Premier League season features a cash-strapped club whose struggles off the pitch are mirrored by on-field performances.

Legon Cities is that club for the 2024/25 season.

Two weeks ago, Paa Kwesi Fabin informed the club of his intention to step down as head coach. Even before Fabin submitted his letter, the club knew the end was nigh. The management was aware that the team – assembled by Fabin only a year ago with additions made in August 2023, had grown disenchanted with the coach.

Coach, Paa Kwesi Fabin

There have been instances where players have questioned Fabin’s decisions and what it takes to get opportunities.

Unsurprisingly, the dressing room rancor reflected on match day.

Before Fabin walked away last week, Cities had won three in thirteen matches with eight defeats. Their goal return was somewhat poorer; ten scored in thirteen, and twenty-three conceded.

So why did Cities not pull the trigger earlier? Money.

Financial constraints

Cities has not been the club it sold itself to be.
The club made a summer splurge in 2020, paying top dollar for musicians like Shatta Wale to perform at its home matches. Over time, rappers Medikal, Kwesi Arthur and other musicians were also handsomely compensated to perform in front of empty seats at the Accra Sports Stadium.

The club often attended its matches with a fleet of luxury cars, in a flashy, disruptive convoy.

Between 2019 and 2021, the club was deliberate about projecting an opulent, bourgeois image to the public.

The team is set to leave the Erata Hotel shortly…Do you want to be part of the convoy to the Stadium like we did to Dansoman last Sunday??Join us at Erata now…#LegonCitiesFc #TheRoyals #WeDeliver #KotokoMustFall pic.twitter.com/gmrEKMdkN6 pic.twitter.com/jthq4g4yPH

— Legon Cities FC (@LegonCitiesFC) January 3, 2020

Good times: the Legon Cities fleet leaves for a Premier League match

Five years later, they struggle to pay salaries on time and have been locked out of their office – a space they shared with Lemla Petroleum, their partners, for months now. The club’s administrative staff have since been working from home as a result.

On November 17, Fabin gave a damning assessment of the club’s fan base – and the lack of it.

“Sometimes when you ask me to address our fans, I honestly don’t know who to speak to because, truthfully, Legon Cities don’t have fans.”

While Fabin’s candor may have upset a few directors at the club, the truth element in what he said could not be denied.

Just as the lack of a sustained, community engagement strategy ostensibly to create a fan base. Occasionally, the club has made donations to less privileged groups. But the goodwill from these events hardly move the needle in this regard.

That is why, five years after taking over and renaming Wa All Stars to Legon Cities, the only fans the club can claim to have are friends and relatives of players, club staff and perhaps the numerable fans that followed Asamoah Gyan to the club in October 2020.

So when Fabin says the club has no fans, it is nothing but self-evident truth.

It is hard to see where they have added value since taking the club.

On-field retrogression

Sporting-wise, it has been a disaster. Cities best performance was in the 2021/22 season, when they finished with forty-six points; six clear of relegation zone. They have flirted with relegation every other season.

In 2022, Cities ended the season with 41 points, one more than relegated Ebusua Dwarfs, just as they did last season, with 45 points, this time, ahead of Accra Great Olympics.

They are no longer able to transfer players for good money. Instead, former players and coaches have made a habit of reporting the club to the Ghana Football Association and FIFA – in the case of Goran Barjaktarevic.

Administrative challenges

In terms of growing strong structures off the pitch, their continued reliance on Lemla Petroleum says enough about how much they have accomplished; none.

Perhaps we should have seen this coming when just a year into their take over, the club ordered its bus driver to leave the players behind following the 2-1 defeat to Ebusua Dwarfs.

There was the ill-fated William Esu situation – the twenty-two year old goalkeeper who was accused of sabotaging the club, ostracized and told not to contact the club again. After weeks of media advocacy, the player’s outstanding salaries were paid to him.

The late William Essu; before an after he fell ill

But that was only after the Professional Footballers Association of Ghana and other groups had made donations to the bed-ridden goalie. He died eventually.

Sadly, not much has changed in terms of employee welfare at the club. So there’s is not a lot about the current ownerships leadership to be excited about.

To say the club is going through austerity would be understating things. But austerity or not, Cities have to find Fabin’s replacement, willy-nilly.

Getting that appointment right is non-negotiable. It may well determine how much they get from their next five league matches; versus Aduana, Hearts of Oak, Dreams F.C. Gold Stars and Medeama S.C.

That is just for the interim. Long term, the club’s best bet for attaining a sustainable future is to hope that, Richard K. Atikpo, the club’s owner stays resourceful and keeps pumping money into the club; like every other Ghana Premier League side.

If Cities are to achieve anything remotely close to what they promised in 2019, there needs to be a paradigm shift from norm.