Barely a week ago, he was standing in one of the two technical boxes at the Accra Sports Stadium shouting, clapping and doing all forms of gestures to charge his side to victory against a well-grounded WAFA side.
He was the head coach of Accra’s second-oldest Premier League club and they were taking on a ‘younger’ yet well-structured and managed WAFA who have rightfully earned their name as ‘Academy boys’.
Today, he welcomed GhanaWeb reporters to his white-painted house situated at one of the developing areas of Ghana’s capital with the title or label of ‘former Great Olympics coach’.
Dressed in a black tracksuit with three stripes representing the Adidas brand, he warmly received the reporters in his living room. His wife, whose light-skinned color sharply contrasts his rather extremely dark complexion, treats the reporters to bottles of water and ‘sobolo’.
Inside his living room, one needs no reminder of his profession as a coach and football instructor.
Boldly displaying on the shelves are pictures and certificates telling the story of a man who has largely been imparting knowledge at the educational level and is now making the step up to the elite level of coaching.
On the day Christians across the world celebrated the birth of their saviour Jesus Christ, he celebrated the birth of his GPL coaching career. He was appointed by Olympics on December 25, 2019.
However, unlike Christ, the ‘death’ of Koffie’s Olympics career came 13 days to Valentine’s Day and 65 days to the crucifixion and demise of Jesus Christ.
At the time of his appointment, Olympics were rooted bottom of the league but at the time of his departure Olympics were 14th with seven points.
When he signed up for the Olympics job, he was not unaware of how ‘violent’ some of the club’s supporters could be when results don’t match their expectations but in the era of #BringBackTheLove he thought some form of civility was going to be shown by the fans.
Unfortunately for him, while the direction of Ghana football had taken a different course to success, some fans of Olympics were still threading the old path which most often than not leads them to suspensions, ban and relegation.
Seated comfortably in a sofa in his living room, Koffie opens up to these reporters on what triggered his resignation from the team with a truckload of nicknames and slogans.
“I didn’t state in my letter of resignation as to exactly why it happened. There were numerous reasons as to why I resigned. The one which triggered my resignation is insecurity with regards to a section of the supporters of Olympics.
“Some of the supporters are great. You’ll always see them at the training ground supporting the coach as well as the players. Anytime we have a match you’ll see them come to throw their weight behind the players and the team. But I left because of insecurity.
After our game against WAFA, a section of the supporters were not happy, made a lot of utterances and questioned the players. But I was not in charge of registration. What I do is I pick my players based on the availability of players. I could field those who have been duly registered. One went to the extent of pushing me and assaulting me in the presence of my wife. That was unprofessional, so I decided to call it quits”.
Koffie is not ungrateful of the platform Olympics has given him. He wished there was no divorce but his personal security and fears of family members including his children, all of whom reside outside the country forced him to make an unpleasant yet necessary decision.
For the board, players and majority of the Olympics family, he holds no malice. He was not bitter but rather appreciative of the chance given him by Olympics and will never utter a bad word about them.
He promises to follow the team keenly and also hope that the club will not return to the second-tier of Ghana football.
“I’m very optimistic that Olympics can survive. We have done a great deal of work. Together with my staff and some management members and supporters we have worked well and I believe we have a strong team and I’m believing that they will survive. I have left a legacy at Olympics and any coach who takes over should at least be able to maintain that legacy.
