Hearts ban officers from player ownership

The Board of Directors of Accra Hearts of Oak has, in line with best management practices of the club, signed up to a code of ethics which bars members from owning players of the club.

The code of ethics is designed to ensure that there is no conflict between the objectives of the individual board members and the club.

This move was made known by the Executive Chairman of the club, Togbe Afede XIV, at the inauguration of the newly-introduced structure of the club, christened the Hearts Executive Group, last Monday. 

He said, like every good company, the Hearts board had to introduce principles to guide the management of the club  in pursuit of consistent performances on the field and in finance.

“Your board has ensured that there is now a code of ethics that guides behaviour, you can call it a code of good governance; it defines the values that should inspire us in positive terms for proper governance and representations of the club and in negative terms to ensure that conduct that contradicts those values are not tolerated.

“For now, board members will not own players; thanks for the appreciation, because that means conflict. If my son wants to play football he better qualifies otherwise he is in the house. He would not come to destroy what we want to achieve,” Togbe Afede said to rapturous applause from the Phobian gathering.

The majority shareholder of the club stated that the club had lost transfer revenues in the past because board members had acted in their own interests because of player-ownership or management. 

“Many times we have lost good players without receiving a dollar in return. Many times our players run their contracts down and leave Hearts for free because of this conflict of interest.

“Board members will not own players because when they do, they negotiate on their behalf and would be negotiating with themselves. As a result other clubs have done better in the transfer market than Hearts”, he revealed.

Togbe Afede XIV added that the Code of Ethics also applied to management members and the technical team of the club. 

The 11-member Board is composed of Togbe Afede XlV, Alhassan Andani, Apiigy Afenu, Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe, Professor Kofi Kumado, Emmanuel Martey Commodore-Mensah, Frank Nelson Nwokolo, Alhaji Amadu Moro Brimah, Justice (Mrs) Ivy Heward-Mills, Gerald Ankrah and Alhaji Ankabi, whose term as a represntative of the National Chapters Committee, ends today.