Sunday, April 17, 2011

Simba Sports Club´s in trouble!

Simba´s coach Patrick Phiri.

Zambian coach Patrick Phiri leads summer exodus out of Simba SC, as the former Mainland Champions leadership seems to have lost its patient with ‘flops’ and ‘Judas.’

He will be replaced by Oman based Talib Hilal, who will be assisted by legend and former holding midfielder Selemani Matola.

This decision was reached by the club’s Executive Committee impromptu meeting in Dar es Salaam on Thursday night.

The committee is reportedly set to meet again this week for further actions. It emerged that the club’s leadership has been frustrated by a trophy-less season, pointing fingers at the technical bench and ‘dishonest’ players as a major reason behind the team inexplicably failure to defend the title they won last season.

And Simba is seemingly going to have a totally new squad next season, with more than 15 players from the current squad parting ways with the club.

An authoritative source within the club leadership confirmed to the ‘Sunday News’ on Saturday that striker Musa Hassan ‘Mgosi’, midfielder Mohammed Banka, skipper Nicholas Nyagawa, Aziz Gilla, Salum Kanoni, Meshack Abel and Ali Ahmed ‘Shiboli’ have all been given the chop.

The source said that while most have been shown the exit door allegedly for sabotaging the team, few others have been cut off because they have proved to be ‘big flops.’

In fact, the source confirmed to the ‘Sunday News’ that the entire technical staff members have been relieved from their duties, meaning assistant coach Amri Said and team manager Innocent Njovu are now ‘jobless.’

The status of Abdallah Kibaden, who was called to strengthen the bench for the Champions League clash against DRC’s TP Mazembe, remained unclear. Kibaden was seen at the bench in the last three league matches.

The overhaul results from the frustrations that the giants suffered, following the illogical failure to defend the title, when the odds favoured them to win it, with three matches remaining.

“The leadership was left annoyed by the behaviour and attitude of the technical bench and some of the players and decided not to keep them,” said the source. Simba have already announced to sell fearsome and gifted striker Mbwana Samatta to TP Mazembe for a massive 250m/- transfer fee.

They are also lining up the sell of Uganda striker Emmanuel Okwi to South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs, while compatriot Patrick Ochan is also a subject of trial to TP Mazembe.

The club is also undecided on either to keep or drop Kenyan midfielder Hilary Echesa and Ugandan solid defender Joseph Owino, who are nursing long term injuries.

And it emerged that Simba players’ registration committee is already out busy shopping in a bid to recruit not only highly skilled players’ both outside and within the country, but searching honest players with love of the club to recruits.

“The committee has been given a green light by the leadership to commence an expensive rebuilding programme. They seek to recruit players who are honest, focused and committed to help the club go places,” said the source.

Simba were impressive in the last stages of the first round of the league and almost the entire second round, but they uncharacteristically lost steam as the league went down to the wire, only to allow unlikely Yanga to emerge the new champions.

Many Simba members and fans have since failed to stomach their team’s failure to win the league and they have been cornering the leadership to explain what happened.

Source: Daily News (Tanzania), Saturday, 16.04.2011

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yanga - Daima Mbele Nyuma Mwiko!!