Africa-Press – Malawi. Malawi National Football Team interim coach Patrick Mabedi has expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of players his former South African DStv Premiership side Kaizer Chiefs has been signing in recent years.
Mabedi’s concerns come in the wake of Chiefs’ failure to lift any silverware in recent years, unlike during his time when they used to win cup and league titles every season. He said during his playing era, Chiefs boasted many national team players who helped in delivering the expected results.
“I strongly believe when a team of Chiefs’ calibre signs foreign players, they must be national team players. The quality must be high and not just ordinary players who won’t make any impact. That’s what they used to do with us.
“When we came to Chiefs, we were national team players. Mohammed Ouseb was a national team player and we found quality players there such as Doctor [Khumalo] and Thabo Mooki. Chiefs were respected. We need to go back to the same standard because Chiefs is a big team. The local players should be of top quality too, like Jabu Pule [Mahlangu] and others,” Mabedi told sowetanlive.co.za.
He said there was something wrong in the club’s recruitment department and suggested that demoted coach Arthur Zwane did not have the right players. Chiefs demoted Zwane from coach to assistant just after a season but Mabedi said his former teammate needed time.
Zwane’s appointment was greeted with excitement by Chiefs fans at the start of the season but he had to be rescued by police from an angry mob at Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg towards the end of the 2022-23 campaign.
The fans were unhappy that Zwane only managed to steer Chiefs to fifth place in the DStv Premiership and failed to go beyond the MTN8 and Nedbank Cup semifinals. However, Chiefs stated that the main focus for the 2022-23 season was on rebuilding, according to sowetanlive.co.za.
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