Abdulai Gazale, former Asante Kotoko assistant coach and current Northern City boss, has revealed that a rift with Prosper Narteh Ogum led to his exit.
Ogum, who returned for a second stint, unexpectedly declared he couldn’t work with Gazale again.
Gazale joined Kotoko in 2019 as Maxwell Konadu’s assistant, but after Konadu’s departure, he was left to manage the youth team.
He occasionally filled in as the first team’s coach, including a stint as a stop-gap coach two seasons ago.
Gazale has now disclosed the training ground issues that led to his departure.
He claims Ogum grew uncomfortable with him correcting players’ mistakes, leading to exclusion from training planning.
Gazale requested to step down, but Nana Yaw Amponsah declined. He eventually stopped attending training, and Ogum later confirmed he couldn’t work with Gazale.
Initially, Ogum never doubted my capability but at a point, some of the players told me that any time we are in training and I correct a mistake in them, Ogum’s posture doesn’t look good. The senior players told me this but I told them I have not been observing that. Remember, I had worked with some of the players under Maxwell, Smith and Berreto and they were used to me, Gazale told Tamale-based Sagani TV.
It went on for a long time and I finally noticed it. It came to a point that if Coach Ogum and the other assistants were planning a training program, they would not even allow me to see what was going on.
From then, I called for a meeting with Nana Yaw Amponsah that I want to step down and I don’t want to be part of the team anymore. Nana Yaw Amponsah declined my request. It continued, and before Ogum could tell Nana Yaw that he couldn’t work with me anymore, I had already stopped going for training.