DYNAMOS will today hold an emergency meeting to decide the future of new coach Paulo Jorge Silva, just two months into his three year contract, as the Portuguese mentor continues to cause divisions within the camp three weeks before the start of the 2016 Castle lager Premier League season.
BY HENRY MHARA
Pre-season results have also instilled doubts over the coach’s capability to steer the ship, while it has been established the club is also not sure about his coaching credentials.
Silva has created more enemies than friends in the playing coaching and administrative structures of the club since he came in and the club’s bosses fear it might spill into the new season and affect results.
So far he has picked fights with members of his technical team, players as well as journalists. He had a scuffle with goalkeepers’ coach Gift Muzadzi was followed by an attack on a journalist whom he assumed to have been working for NewsDay.
But despite warnings by the club’s hierarchy to change his conduct and for him to improve his relations with people he works with, the former goalkeeper was at it again this weekend having another brush with his assistants Muzadzi and Lloyd Mutasa.
It started off with a confrontation with Tatenda Mukuruva after the young goalkeeper conceded direct from a corner in the team’s a 1-0 loss to ZPC Kariba last week.
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Muzadzi and Mutasa were particularly displeased with his aggression and not the criticism. Previously, Silva has had clashes with team manager Richard Chihoro and senior players Sydney Linyama, Dominic Mukandi, Ocean Mushure and Takesure Chinyama.
The club’s bosses are understood to be fed up with the bad publicity that Silva has generated since his appointment and are ready to pull the trigger.
They are already considering their options but the three-year contract they have with him could be a stumbling block.
Dynamos president Keni Mubaiwa yesterday confirmed that his executive will hold a crunch meeting today where Silva’s future will come under scrutiny.
Silva is expected in the country today with the rest of the squad from their tour of Malawi.
“We expect the team back tomorrow and as soon as they arrive we will sit down and try to find out what really is the problem,” Mubaiwa said. “We can’t continue like this and fold our arms as if nothing is happening. It is the brand that is being soiled and it has to stop now,” said Mubaiwa.
“We will review the last few months because we have had numerous problems in the team. We want to find out what is happening so we will give everyone a chance to give their side of the story. We want to weed out the trouble causer. Anyone who will be implicated will certainly go; we will fire the person on the spot.”
“We have not had such problems in the past and if it’s the players, then we will act. But we are worried when it is one name that always crops up in this fight. Like I said, everyone will be given a chance to explain himself. We are going into the new season and we would want to start on a good footing,” added Mubaiwa.
Silva’s coaching history will also come under the spotlight at the meeting with some executive members said to be unhappy with his “cooked-up” CV, following the expose by this publication.
Apart from claiming an impressive working experience in Europe, his qualifications are also his secret, as it emerged when he applied for a working permit he did not include his coaching certificates.
He claims to have worked with several high-profile teams before, including German’s VfB Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Greuther Furth and Aalen.
Stuttgart has since denied ever working with Silva in any capacity, suggesting he might have worked with kids at a local school.
The Dynamos coach says he started his coaching career working as an Under 17 coach for Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon in 2011, but the club has also distanced themselves from Silva.
Portuguese journalist Marco Vaza, who works for the Lisbon, based daily newspaper Publico last week spoke to two former Sporting Lisbon coaching staff who both professed ignorance on Jorge Silva working at the club as a coach.
Silva also claimed to have coached Al-Sharjah FC in the United Arab Emirates and an unnamed club in Albania as well as Austrian Bundesliga sides FC Admira and SV Grödig in the years 2013 and 2014.
An online search however shows that Silva never coached the two clubs as they were under the tutelage of Toni Polster and Adi Hutler respectively in that period.
