Hearts of Oak board member Frank Nelson Nwokolo has thanked Kenichi Yatsuhashi for his service to the club adding that his departure is a "bitter pill" the club but has pleaded with the fans to be supportive of their decision.

The club mutually parted ways with head coach Kenichi Yatsuhashi yesterday after the coach requested for a 25-day leave of absence to go for a coaching course in India.

Hearts would have played five league games in the absence of the Japanese-American coach but both parties felt it was too long a time in football and for a big club to go without a substantive coach.

“This is an opportunity for the management of Accra Hearts of Oak to just inform our loving supporters that we have parted way, mutually, with our head coach Kenichi Yatsuhashi,” Nwokolo told facebook.com/accraheartsofoak.

“He made a request to the Board that he wants to attend a course in India, in a city called Goa, and he is going to take 25 days and he feels he is not comfortable for him to leave the team in vacancy so he feels that the club should terminate his contract and let him go; and if we find a head coach, or anybody to take over the position, he has no problem with that. But he thinks to be fair to the club he cannot be away for 25 days without a head coach.

“So basically, we listened to him and felt that he has given us a better option. He has shown humanity and consideration for the club and all we can do is to say ‘thank you to him’ and sort him out whatever he is due in terms of finance so I think he is happy.

“It is a bitter pill for Accra Hearts of Oak because at the end of the day, we did not expect that he was going to throw in the towel at this time and say he was going to leave but he informed us that he had explained everything to our former managing director, Gerald Ankrah, but unfortunately no document was found about it – so it was just what he said. So being human, we have to let him because we think he must continue his career.

“Accra Hearts of Oak will now have to go into a search which is a bitter pill like I said because we did not expect he was going to leave at this time but it has happened and we have to find a head coach.”