Coaches’ body boss under fire over remarks against De Jhong
Silver Strikers FC have demanded an apology from National Football Coaches Association (NFCA) chairperson Aubrey Nankhuni over remarks he made against their coach Pieter de Jhong.
The coaches boss hit out at the Dutch coach’s conduct in an interview with Times Radio on Thursday.
In the interview, among others, Nankhuni was quoted as having said De Jhong “alibe khalidwe [lacks discipline]” and “akusokoneza mpira [he is creating confusion]” following his recent outbursts against referees and conditions of come pitches.
Nankhuni was further quoted as having said they will write De Jhong a warning letter.
“As a coach, he is doing well. He has improved the performance of the team, but on the other hand, he lacks discipline. We need to write him a warning letter because we needed to meet him on code of conduct,” he said.
But in an interview yesterday, the Central Bankers’ company secretary Peter Masiye said they were not amused with Nankhuni’s remarks.
He said: “What he [Nankhuni] said was baseless and we are very disappointed, to say the least.
“Being the coaches’ chairperson, our expectation was that he would be in the forefront protecting the coach. You do not throw your child under a bus.
“It was also unfortunate that Mr. Nankhuni went on to say they would issue our coach with a warning letter. Where on earth do you issue a warning without giving someone a chance to be heard?”
Masiye said their position is that Nankhuni has a misconceived bias against De Jhong.
“To us, that is a clear violation of De Jhong’s rights. It shows disrespect. So, we have written him [Nankhuni] an e-mail demanding an apology, failing which we’ll take action because his words were defamatory and it has injured our coach’s character,” he said.
On his part, Nankhuni apologised to both De Jhong and Silver in an interview yesterday, saying: “I apologise wholeheartedly for what I said and both the coach and Silver should receive my apologies.”
But Masiye said they expect Nankhuni to apologise and retract his remarks through the same platform he used.
De Jhong yesterday said the issue was being handled by the club.
