Kaizer Chiefs have taken a risk by keeping Nasreddine Nabi’s former assistants despite recent struggles

COMMENT

You would have expected the head honchos at Kaizer Chiefs to have learnt their lesson by now. But such is the questionable nature of management that they seem not to care anymore.

Chiefs announced this week that they had officially parted ways with head coach Nasreddine Nabi after suspending him due to licensing and mistrust issues. That was a smart move.

The relationship between the two parties seemed disconnected — almost as if Chiefs needed Nabi more than he needed them. But while that decision to end the relationship showed that Chiefs’ big shots have nerves of steel, they went on to undo all their good work by retaining Nabi’s former trusted lieutenants, Cedric Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef, as co-coaches for the rest of the season.

You see, the issue isn’t that Kaze and Ben Youssef are bad coaches. They’re actually decent—given that when they held the fort for Nabi at the start of the season, they enjoyed a five-game unbeaten run, including four wins and a draw.

The problem, however, is that they are not fit to coach a club of Chiefs’ calibre. They are currently enduring a three-game winless run in the Betway Premiership, and were recently eliminated from the Carling Knockout last-16 by a struggling Stellenbosch side before the Fifa break.

That elimination also exposed deeper issues, including a potential lack of respect from the players. Goalkeeper Fiacre Ntwari blatantly refused to come off for Bruce Bvuma just before the penalty shootout.

So, by giving Kaze and Ben Youssef the reins until the end of the season, what exactly are Chiefs trying to prove? Or how much more damage are they willing to subject the club to?

Granted, they may have opted for continuity rather than starting afresh. We don’t know. But what’s clear is that it’s far too early in the season for the club’s hierarchy to be proving their ineptitude by panicking and sticking with a duo that clearly isn’t up to the task.

I don’t know whether it’s loyalty, politeness, or simply not wanting to dig deep into the club’s pockets to curb the damage. But it’s not the first time they’ve opted to keep coaches who seem out of their depth in charge of the first team.

Remember Cavin Johnson?

The former SuperSport United coach was promoted to the club’s hot seat a few seasons ago, replacing Molefi Ntseki towards the end of the year. But from the outset, there were signs he wasn’t going to cut the mustard at the club.

Instead of cutting ties with him early to rescue the season, Chiefs kept him until the end. And Johnson didn’t disappoint — he endured a horrific 10th-place finish on the log before being replaced by Nabi, who won the Nedbank Cup but still only managed a disappointing ninth-place finish last season.

I understand that the revered son of the soil, Pitso Mosimane, wasn’t going to come cheap — and might still not be — but a club of Chiefs’ stature should be more than capable of luring him at a reasonable price.

Had Chiefs decided to retain Kaze and Ben Youssef as Mosimane’s assistants, you wouldn’t have put it past them to try sweetening the deal by asking Mosimane to consider working with the existing backroom staff.

Sure, Mosimane might have been the perfect candidate for the Chiefs job. But such is the stature of the club — they remain the biggest in the land. So surely, they could attract most coaches they want, locally and abroad.

Take a coach like Ruud Krol, for instance.

He’s currently unattached and would probably be open to returning to the PSL to prove that the success he enjoyed at Pirates was no fluke. But no — Chiefs chose their own path, retaining two coaches who have already shown signs they’re not ready to lead a club of this magnitude.

They must now hope that decision works out. Otherwise, they’ll be exposed as unfit to run a club of Chiefs’ calibre — forcing club chairman and PSL chairman, Kaizer Motaung, to step in and take matters into his own hands.