Middendorp Seals Deal With Hearts

Former Kumasi Asante Kotoko head coach, Ernst Johannes Middendorp arrives in Accra on Tuesday to take up the job of Technical Director of Accra Hearts of Oak.

Middendorp?s trip is the culmination of a weekend of intense and sometimes difficult negotiations and late yesterday talks between the trilogy of Hearts, Strategic Outsourcing Solutions (SOS Networx) and Middendorp achieved a break through leading to the German coach?s trip today.

Soccer Express investigations indicate that Hearts Board Secretary, Ernest Thompson, SOS Networx Director, Lawyer Philip Addison and Middendorp held series of meetings and teleconferences all weekend and yesterday aimed at ironing out contractual differences.

The German according SOS Networx senior official Herbert Mensah is to stay with Hearts for a period of two years.

Though Mensah declined to go into details of the contractual agreement between Middendorp and Hearts because of confidential agreements signed with his client, Accra Hearts of Oak, he confirmed Middendorp?s job security is assured because of secondary contractual agreements SOS Networx has signed with both the German and Hearts.

Mensah said having had a rather unceremonious departure from his last Ghanaian club, Asante Kotoko in 2002 Middendorp was naturally hesitant to jump onto the next plane for Ghana and it had to take ?lot of horse-trading and persuasion to convince? him to agree to the Hearts deal.

The Middendorp is the first major breakthrough for SOS Networx launched by Mensah and his associates late last year to offer consultancy services on a wide range of marketing and managerial matters to mainly sports biased entities.

Though Hearts contracted SOS Networx last month as sports and marketing management consultants with widely held rumours that the Networx was going to take over the management of the club, matters seemed to have quieted down after a trip to Accra later that month by Ernst Middendorp ostensibly to conclude arrangements to take the Hearts coaching job.

Hearts management officials obviously excited by the initial near-perfect performances in the Coca Cola Top Four competition were in no mood for a change in technical direction but all that seemed to have fizzled into nothingness after their shock 1-2 defeat at the hands of archrivals, Kumasi Asante Kotoko last week.

An immediate SOS was sent for Middendorp and all off a sudden the dormant relationship between SOS Networx and Hearts came alive leading to the resumption of talks for the appointment of Ernst Middendorp as Technical Director of the Phobian club.

Ernst?s immediate task is to raise a formidable squad capable of qualifying for the money zone of the CAF Champions League, something that has eluded the Phobians since their epoch-making Champions League victory in 2000.

The Phobians are playing Stade Malien in Bamako in two weeks and it would take the German a miracle to overcome the hurdle with team morale at an all time low after the loss to Kotoko and the suspension of two instrumental players in the persons of Emmanuel Osei Kuffour and Dan Quaye.

According Mensah he does not expect Middendorp to ?work immediate magic? for Hearts as the German tactician will have to work out new strategies to take Hearts back on track.

Meanwhile Mensah has denied stories circulating on the Hearts of Oak front that he has been appointed a Board member the club.

Writing about SOS Networx current relationship with Hearts in his column in the Soccer Express today, Mensah noted that while it is important for his organisation to have some representation on the Hearts Board his presence on the Board would be ?premature?.

"Of interest moving forward would be how Hearts of Oak see the future. My views on the role of Boards, their members and the capitalisation of business are well known and potentially problematic for those with a fundamentally different view and vision," Mensah stated.