A handful of disgruntled Kaizer Chiefs fans picketed outside the gates of the famous Chiefs Village in Naturena in a ‘peaceful’ protest on Saturday morning to deliver their memorandum to the club’s hierarchy.
The fans have given the club a period of two weeks to decide on the future of co-coaches Cedric Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef.
This is at the back of a string of poor results, where the team lost four consecutive games in all competitions, including the heavy 3-0 defeat to Soweto nemesis Orlando Pirates last weekend.
The Amakhosi fans mobilized on social media to express their frustrations and circulated a poster announcing that they would stage a peaceful protest at the club’s training base and headquarters on Saturday.
Indeed, some fans heeded the call and made their way to Naturena, where they met at a petrol station near the Village, to assign delegates to enter the premises and deliver their memorandum.
The small number of fans who were there took a short walk to the club headquarters singing their gwijos, escorted by the SA Police Services officials, with their ‘Nyala or Hippo’, formerly known as the RG-12 Armoured Personnel Carrier, right behind them.
As fans approached the club premises, security personnel and SAPS blocked them about 100m from the gates to prevent them from getting any closer to the world-class training base.
After discussions among fans, a four-member delegation was selected and entered, where they were welcomed by the club’s Communications Manager, Vina Maphosa, to deliver their memorandum formally.
After several minutes of private caucus between the selected delegation and the club officials, the four fans, who were visibly disappointed, returned and provided a brief update.
“We went inside and stressed the fact that we don’t want those two coaches [Cedric Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef] to lead the team into the next game [against Durban City], and the club needs to address that as soon as yesterday,” Diakanya Makgato said.
“And they did promise that they are working on that [changing the coaches] and they will come back to us, maybe before the next game.
“The other issues that we raised are that we need a local coach who understands our football. You can hire Jose Mourinho to come here, but chances are that he will not understand the philosophy of the club and even the PSL, so that is our frustration.
“This thing of going outside and bringing in people from outside [foreign] to coach our beloved team is not working for us; it has not been working for us for the past 10 years, and it has been proven that it is not going to work. We want someone local to come and coach Kaizer Chiefs.”
Some of the names that were chanted by the fans were renowned coach Pitso Mosimane, Benni McCarthy, and club legend Doctor Khumalo, amongst others.
“We told them some of the local coaches that we would like to see take over our team, and from what they said, we believe that someone on that list is coming to Kaizer Chiefs,” he added.
It is yet to be seen whether Amakhosi will return to league action against Durban City on 15 March with Kaze and Ben Youssef still at the helm, or with a new man on the hot seat.
