JOHANNESBURG – Steve Komphela on Sunday dropped the biggest hint yet that Kaizer Chiefs may have already begun the search for his successor.
Speaking at a press conference after Amakhosi narrowly beat relegation-bound Platinum Stars 1-0 at FNB Stadium, the coach revealed that he’d not had any discussion with management nor his agent Tim Sukazi about extending his contract, which runs out at the end of the current campaign.
“I am sure that from a legal point of view, any contract with terms that are clear talks to that. You wouldn’t want to say anything inside or outside that. A term is a term, and that is clear.
When they say to you ‘two years’, then that’s that, unless you want to change the constitution,” said Komphela, whose agreement with Chiefs was over a three-year period when he arrived in 2015.
“A contract is just that. We as professionals just have to keep doing our jobs in a manner that says it’s an opportunity given to you and every second counts. When you are a man of process, you don’t consider your personal stance, but you work within a particular system that wants to achieve a particular objective.”
Komphela had also used words like “as I go” in his TV interview a few minutes before the press briefing with journalists, and it is on the back of the 3-0 humiliating defeat to Chippa United a week or so ago at the same venue that has again put his future in the spotlight.
The former Free State Stars, Maritzburg United and Platinum Stars coach has also been labelled an underachiever during his spell at Chiefs because of his failure to win trophies in nearly three years at the club.
Earlier last week chairman Kaizer Motaung said in a statement there would be a “squad overhaul” in efforts to reclaim the glory days next season – and it looks likely that Komphela will also be allowed to leave.
“Planning will always be there,” the coach said. “To be honest, no institutions will wait until the last minute to do planning. And rightly so, because if you don’t plan in advance then you are planning to fail. One has to welcome that because we are professionals.”
Pressed to elaborate on his job security, Komphela said: “I don’t deal with such (contracts). You know, one thing with coaches, you try not to deal with such things yourself. In any contractual matter there are discussions, and any discussions taking place there are a whole lot of other details.
So I haven’t received any information from whoever handles my stuff. I wouldn’t know. There are stages where things happen, and they happen, sometimes, in a way that you don’t know. I don’t have the details to handle this myself.”
Chiefs still have a chance to win a trophy this season and face Free State Stars in the semifinals of the Nedbank Cup on Saturday in Durban.
But it is doubtful Komphela will be asked to stay on beyond the length of his contract even if he guides Amakhosi all the way in the cup.