Elvis Chiweshe has quit be Mobile Premier League football club Gaborone United (GU) in Botswana after a bitter confrontation with a board member of the team on Saturday following their 4-2 home defeat to Ecco City Greens.
While GU secretary Herbert Letsebe could not be reached yesterday for comment, authoritative sources from Gaborone confirmed the former Eagles midfielders assistant Rapelang Razor Tsatsilebe would now be in charge of the last eight games of the season.
Chuchu arrived in Botswana with an admirable reputation last July after having led Dynamos to the mini-league phase of the Caf Champions League and was given the immediate task of winning the league title.
But 22 games into the season, GU lie fourth with 38 points, having won just 11, drawn five and lost six to lie 19 points behind runaway leaders, Madinda Ndlovus Mochudi Centre Chiefs, with eight games to go.
Yesterday, Chuchu spoke to NewsDay Sport from Gaborone, hours before he bade farewell to the players, management and board in the afternoon training session.
It was a gentlemens agreement. There were things that we were not in agreement with and after looking at the contract I had with the club, I had to protect myself and my reputation. The club wanted to protect itself and we agreed to part ways.
I was just eight months into the contract and building a team with has been hit with so many injuries to such an extent that it was now impossible to field a consistent team. But some of the people were too ambitious and did not see through this.
I was confronted by a board member on Saturday and also received an sms from the kit manager, quite a disturbing one and I could see that there was no direction at all.
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In the match (against Ecco City) I used a young boy as the goalkeeper because the regular, Noah Maposa, was injured and I had some defenders playing as strikers and were really giving it their best.
This was a good team, playing good football and in position five on the log, but when you look at some of these things, you realise they were becoming personal, Chuchu said.
He added: I also had a fight with one of their influential members and you could tell he was shooting from a distance here. There was pressure, and worse, from people who dont understand what is happening.
The pressure that was at Dynamos, where I coached for two years was better because they understood football, but here you just had no chance to rebuild a team.
GU has in the past been coached by Shabanie Mine gaffer Luke Masomere, who also left under cloud while Zambian Mike Sitholes departure was also under unclear circumstances, although in all these three cases, the issue of interference in team matters seems to be the common factor.
