Castle Lager Premier Soccer League giants Dynamos have fired coach Lloyd Mutasa and his assistant Murape Murape.
BY Tawanda Tafirenyika
The two were dismissed for different reasons, with Mutasa getting the boot over “poor results”, while Murape was sacked over comments he made in the Saturday issue of NewsDay.
Mutasa will stay on in his position, but he was told at a meeting with the club executive yesterday that they were on the prowl for a new coach and were looking for a foreign mentor to take over.
The same club management experimented with Portuguese coach Paulo Jorge Silva at the start of the season, but it brought a disastrous outcome with the team winning just one of their first five matches before the coach was dismissed.
During Mutasa’s tenure, Dynamos collected 30 points from 18 matches, while Highlanders garnered a point more with Caps United and FC Platinum taking 33 and 34 points respectively.
Murape’s dismissal was effective from yesterday and he will not be part of the technical team when the Glamour Boys take on Tsholotsho in a league match this afternoon.
He was appointed as Mutasa’s assistant in May this year and has been outspoken even against his bosses.
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“We met with the technical team and agreed to go our separate ways,” DeMbare president Keni Mubaiwa said.
“We have already started looking for a new coach. We want a foreign coach to take over, but in the meantime we have parted ways with assistant coach Murape Murape, the reason being the comments he made in the Saturday issue of NewsDay. We are not happy with what he said, so we asked him to leave. Mutasa stays for now, but he is aware we are looking for a new coach because the results under him have not been good.”
In the article, Murape criticised the club management over failure in the transfer market where he said the club only relied on freebies.
Murape’s rant in that interview with NewsDaySport followed DeMbare’s loss to Highlanders, which extinguished the team’s chances of winning the league title.
Dynamos trail log leaders FC Platinum by 12 points and second-placed Caps United by 11 points with seven matches left in the campaign. “In terms of quality, we have to be honest enough and agree that we don’t have enough quality to challenge for honours.
“Some of the players are not Dynamos material. Some don’t have a strong mentality and that commitment that is needed at Dynamos. We have to be honest and all agree because that is the reality,” Murape said.
“There are players who come here and believe everything will just happen for them easily. We have numbers, but how many of them can actually produce results for this team — players who are strong enough mentally and physically? To be a Dynamos player, you need to work hard, to be disciplined, committed and to sacrifice.”
He said, unlike in the past, Dynamos no longer appeal to quality players, most of whom now opt to join rival teams where financial rewards are better.
The club, reeling under a financial crisis, has in recent times been gazumped to the signatures of notably Archford Gutu, Abbas Amidu and Ronald Chitiyo by rivals Caps United and Harare City.
“All the good players in the land are opting to go to other teams, which are offering them more money and we are left to sign free agents. It’s now up to Dynamos (management) to look for ways to keep the club competitive on the market. In the current circumstances, I think we should revive our junior policy and build our team from there,” Murape said.
