Nearly a month following the appointment of Daine Klate as Chippa United head coach, club owner Siviwe Mpengesi has shed light on the why Kurt Lentjies is no longer at the club after ensuring they play top flight football at least one more season.
Lentjies, who began last season on the books of The Chilli Bits as an active player, was appointed as interim coach midway through the last campaign, effectively meaning he had to hang his boots to take up this role.
However, after rescuing Chippa from the dreaded drop, majority were surprised to see the name of Daine Klate brandished as the head Coach instead of Lentjies and Mpengesi revealed his disgust at Lentjies' decision to decline his new proposal.
"I believe in development and giving players and coaches an opportunity. I'm beyond disappointed with how things ended with Kurt Lentjies, who didn't want to work with a young coach, I took a risk without him having qualifications. I took him as a Grade R teacher to University," he said on SaFM with Thabiso Mosia.
"It could have backfired but he did well for us but we saw some room for improvement. But he showed us the middle finger and chose to leave. He didn't want to work with a more experienced coach. He wanted to run things as a one man show and it can't be"
Klate has been working wonders with the club's reserve side in the DStv Diski Challenge, finishing the season in fourth place last season, the highest ever position the club's juniors have had since the tournament's inception and he certainly has the backing of Mpengesi ahead of his most difficult task yet in the new season.
"But we are happy with Daine Klate. We used to be the laughing stock in the MDC but he turned things around for us and we have to reward him. We are confident that next season will be our best season. We also hope that 60 percent of the players will come from the region," expressed Mpengesi
The Gqebherha based side has blown through five different coaches in the last two years, a trend the owner is looking to buck with the appointment of Klate.
"Over the years I've realized that what's important for us is to retain our status. We hope to start well. We always give our coaches the first 10 games, even his contract says he can't be fired after 10 games.But we will support him because this is a good story of a young coach," he said
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