|
In a theatrical development, Bakili Bullets chair Sunduzwayo Madise on Tuesday accused club mentor Kinnah ‘Electric’ Phiri of trying to find a scapegoat on the team’s shocking 1-0 loss to Cobbe Barracks by attributing it to the mass exodus of key players.
Madise charged that the coach should not use the players departure as an excuse because at no time did he suggest to the executive about the need for new players.
“Mr Phiri should not use that as a scapegoat, he should just accept that we were beaten because of a wrong tactical approach, he should be honest.
“Afterall there has never been a time when he has asked for new players, if anything the executive has been making an effort to recruit new players. He has always maintained that he is comfortable with the crop that is there. There should be no excuses, we must collectively share the blame,” said the Bullets boss.
He said the team played badly and there was no way it was going to win with the way the game was approached.
The Bullets head also said he will bring it to the attention of the coach that he is not supposed to raise such issues in the press before discussing with the executive committee.
But Kinnah stuck to his guns and insisted that the team’s performance will continue to slump if the players who quit the team are not replaced.
“It is unfortunate that the chairman has reacted in such a way but the truth still remains that we need to replace the players that have quit the team if we are to do well.
“It is a view that is being shared by all the stakeholders of the team. You can’t lose players like Robert Ng’ambi, Dick Malidadi, Emmanuel Chipatala, Maupo Msowoya and Mapopa Musukwa and still expect to perform wonders,” said the Bullets coach.
However, Madise countered: “Apart from Mapopa all the other players left before the season started, why then didn’t he tell us about the need for new players..I thought we won the first three games with the same players?”
Meanwhile the team’s general secretary Willie Phalula confessed on Tuesday that financial woes are slowly but surely taking their toll on the side.
He said the club has not had any response from its sponsor former president Bakili Muluzi regarding the K9 million ($83,333) budget which it presented two months ago.
“We have not had any response from the sponsor. So far I can say there is nothing on sight, we are just waiting.
“In fact one of the contributing factors to the exodus of the players is because our coffers are getting dry. It has reached a point whereby when players ask us about the position of sponsorship, we have no ready answer for them,” explained Phalula.
Quizzed on why the club is not making a follow-up with the former president, Phalula said: “the problem is that the protocol is rather complicated.
“The previous committee did not have problems whenever they wanted to meet the sponsor because they would go through the trustees and usually it was via either Mr [Yusuf] Matumula or Mr [Rashid] Nembo but it seems all the trustees have now deserted the team.”
The Bullets spokesman said the current executive committee is surprised that since it went into office, no trustee has made himself available.
“In fact, apart from Messrs Nembo, Matumula, Gaston Mwenelupembe and Jai Banda, we don’t even know who are the other trustees. We have never met them and none of them has made an effort to contact us. Is it because the club is facing hard times, perhaps?” wondered the outspoken official.
But Nembo said in a separate interview that the trustees thought everything was in order.
“As trustees we play an advisory role to the executive and we are not supposed to be involved in the day-to-day running of the club. We can also intervene whenever there is a problem.
“And we are not aware that they are having difficulties in meeting the sponsor because in that case they were supposed to contact us and we would have seen the way forward,” said Nembo.
Apart from Nembo, Matumula, Banda and Mwenelupembe, the other trustees are Muluzi himself, lawyer Paul Maulidi and former chairman Hassam Jussab.
Muluzi’s spokesman Sam Mpasu said early this week that Muluzi already met Bullets officials “and they were sorted out.”
|
