adminthe mother. The issue of the captain does not mean that there is a crisis at the club. This chapter must be closed.”
With those words, Bobby Motaung probably thought he was drawing the great Kaizer Chiefs captaincy saga to a graceful conclusion.
But, speaking on SABC during SoccerZone last night, Motaung apologised to the Chiefs’ fans for his statement last week.
“I took a lot of strain because of the allegations (of captaincy issue) and hence I reacted emotionally and out of frustration,” he said during the TV interview.
Amakhosi’s “football manager” is deluded of course. But that’s what happens when you are the son of Amakhosi’s founder, when your sister Jessica runs the marketing side of the nation’s biggest
club, and your injured brother Kaizer Junior – arguably a better cricketer than footballer in his youth – is on the physio’s couch waiting to return to the lead role.
In fact, if you’re a Motaung, it must be hard to keep a grip on reality 41 years after the heroic Kaizer returned from the United States and took South African football by storm.
That Kaizer Motaung is a footballing colossus is not in dispute.
That Tshintsha Guluva was unearthed as a 16-year-old prodigy by Orlando Pirates is fact. That former West Ham star Phil Woosnam spotted him playing in Zambia in 1968 and took him to Atlanta Chiefs where he became a US All-Star is the stuff of South African soccer history.
The question is: Can the 67-year-old entrust the running of the club he established in 1970 to his children and still count on the unquestioning support of an estimated 14 million Amakhosi?
Two weeks ago, when Chiefs’ captain Jimmy Tau was reported to have resigned from the captaincy, Bobby told Robert Marawa’s excellent Discovery Sports Centre show on Metro FM that there was no problem, Jimmy was still the captain, he had NOT had a row with coach Vladimir Vermezovic and that “everything is normal. There is no story here”.
After the listless Telkom Knockout defeat against Platinum Stars over the weekend, an under-pressure “VV” emerged to tell us Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune would be elevated to the captaincy.
Just what happened to Tau? Why Khune? On Monday, Tinashe Nengomasha, the teak-tough Zimbabwean, was appointed captain.
Nengomasha captained Chiefs in the League game against Platinum Stars at the weekend Khune needed two weeks to recover from an untimely bout of pneumonia.
Last season Chiefs, winners of 78 trophies in those incredible 41 years since the Kaizer from Orlando East came home, saw archrivals Pirates win an unprecedented treble.
In pre-season, Pirates picked up the Carling Black Label Cup to further upset their Sowetan rivals, ironically on the back of a glaring Khune penalty shootout miss.
Some say you can still see his spot-kick in orbit over Johannesburg. This season Chiefs are already out of two cups and adrift in the title race, questions are rightly being asked.
So Bobby stepped up to the plate at the club’s high-tension press conference last Wednesday and told us Khune was the right choice, that everything was running fine, that there had never been any dispute with Tau.
Then Bobby produced his trump card.
His surname.
With these words he destroyed any scrap of credibility he had left:
“As for those who dream that Bobby Motaung must step down, that Bobby Motaung must go, it is a dream! Bobby Motaung goes nowhere. I was not appointed by ANC or IFP . . . I will be here as long as this company exists.
“I did not apply for this job, I did not submit a CV. My father invested his life in this club, this is a family business. You must understand that. We are all working to ensure Chiefs dominate.” Yup.
Like the school bully with the headmaster father. The wayward prince with the elderly regent as his protector. Nepotism at its worst.
While the thousands of Kaizer Chiefs fans fork out their hard-earned clash to follow their team and buy the new gold-and-black striped “zebra” kit, the Motaung family are apparently impervious to outside pressure.
It can’t be right. Clearly, there was substance to the Tau story. And it’s plain Khune is being forced to take the captain’s armband with Kaizer Junior waiting in the wings to take charge when he’s fit. Not a bad choice, but increasingly difficult to sell to the success-hungry Amakhosi hordes.
That faithful bunch who continually talk about Amakhosi rising to the occasion?
Without the finger-waving millions, Bobby, Kaizer Chiefs would be nothing.
The same can be said of every professional football club. And if I were you, I would be looking very carefully at this quote from VV on Wednesday when he was asked why the excellent Siphiwe Tshabalala was not considered for leadership.
“Tshabalala still wants to go overseas. If you make him captain and then he leaves in January then what do you do?”
No fans, no Tshabalala, no club. Start preparing that CV, Bobby. Next time, you may need it. Bobby Motaung’s intriguing, if not outrageous, comments last Wednesday forced Kaizer Motaung to apologise to the club’s fans. It is not the first time, however, that “Bobsteak” comments have triggered many an angry response in recent times, even one from Irvin Khoza. Here are some . . . Bobby:
“I’m not saying Cosmos are fools . . . I’m saying the (Tshifhiwa Mmbooi) case was foolish and that’s why in the end they withdrew,” Bobby speaking to KICK OFF in September 2009.
Cosmos hit back: “It is unfortunate then that Motaung can unleash such vitriol against Cosmos when past records show that he should have looked in the mirror before speaking. He had gone three such routes before when you consider how they lost out on the late Lesley Manyathela, then subsequently Papi Zothwane and then Siphelele Mthembu . . . What does this mean – that a three-time fool is “wiser” than a first timer? Who is more stupid?”
Bobby: “Those CAPS United people are unscrupulous and they are unethical. This is not the first time they have done this. We will never deal with the club ever again,” he was quoted as saying in a report carried by The Herald in April 2010, after CAPS decided to sell Nyasha Mushekwi and Method Mwanjali to Mamelodi Sundowns despite Chiefs making the first move and booking the players in a hotel, from where they were allegedly taken by Sundowns.
The Herald newspaper columnist, Rob Sharuko: “Take a very close look in the mirror Bobby before you pour out your venom and you will realise that you are probably not the best man to pass that judgment. Why, you may ask? Because Bobby, not so long ago, you exercised your right – if you may remember – as the team that owned the signature of Onismor Bhasera and it all ended up in a frustrating bid for the young man to join a club of his choice. You felt it was within your right, as the owner of the player, to have a decision on where he goes and how he goes there.”
Bobby: “The reality is that we are rivals with Pirates, but they are always following us. They first followed us to Rustenburg a few years ago. Then we moved to Ellis Park and they took it over. If it was possible they would come here to the (Chiefs) Village (in Naturena). Maybe they idolise us,” Bobby explained to The Star in November 2010 why Chiefs were not going to use the Orlando stadium during the 2010/11 season.
Khoza: “There is no conceivable way Bobby would have made these statements with the support of my colleague and contemporary, his father, Mr Kaizer Motaung . . . I would like to believe that Mr Bobby Motaung, of all people, understand the hard work it took to pull football in South Africa out of the gutter to a level where we successfully hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup . . . It therefore defeats me when he is able to, in the same breath, master such unmindful and insensible utterances as those attributed to him in The Star.”
Bobby: “As for those who dream that Bobby Motaung must step down, that Bobby Motaung must go, it is a dream! Bobby Motaung goes nowhere. I’m not elected here. I was not appointed by ANC or IFP . . . “
Kaizer: “Following the press conference yesterday when the team’s captaincy issue was addressed and at which the Football Manager made certain unfortunate comments, I would like to convey, with great humility, my heartfelt regret and unreserved apologies at the offence these comments have caused to many of our supporters; people who are at the heart of Kaizer Chiefs.” – KickOff.com.
Online Reporter