Durban — If the football rumour mill is to be believed, then controversial Chippa United owner Siviwe “Chippa” Mpengesi has not "turned over a new leaf".
According to reports, Morgan Mammila could be set for a return to the Chilli Boys after having recently quit his job with All Stars FC.
There were previously suggestions that Mpengesi had “turned over a new leaf” when he not only hired Eastern Cape football hero Daine Klate at the start of the season to coach his club but also when he hired four-time league winning coach Gavin Hunt at the start of the last season. It turned out to be false with Hunt as he did not even last a season in charge of the club and the same could soon prove to be true with regards to Klate.
After six games, Chippa find themselves rooted at the bottom of the log. They have won just one out of their league games to date and have five points to their name. Unless improvement is made, they could be set for yet another relegation battle.
The problems facing Chippa are really not the fault of Klate or any of their several former coaches. It is rather the fault of shoddy ownership decisions.
The club has never had a well-funded structure and the fact that the team regularly changes coaches and tactics means that it will be hard for players to maintain confidence which translates into inefficient performances on the pitch.
Chippa really are one of the jokes of South African football. If Mpengesi wanted to build a well-oiled machine, he would take lessons from Stellenbosch FC. Stellies are far from one of the best teams on the local scene but have been run well in comparison to the majority of local clubs over the last few years.
One of the biggest reasons behind the club’s impressive improvement is that they have stuck by coach Steve Barker. Barker has been in charge of the Western Cape based side since 2017 and is the longest serving coach in the top-flight.
The majority of clubs would have sacked him two seasons ago as Stellies flirted with relegation for a large part of the season. Stellies finished fourth last season proving that they did learn from their mistakes.
While they have endured a slow start to the new season, it is unlikely that they will sack Barker without giving him a realistic time frame within which to alter the club’s fortunes.
This is something that all trigger happy owners such as Mpengesi need to learn. They need to analyse club situations properly and give coaches realistic time frames within which to fix things.
IOL Sport