WHAT’S ON PSL
IF STEVE KOMPHELA’S resignation letter is anything to go by, it will take a miracle for Bloemfontein Celtic to avoid relegation even though they finished the first half of the season in the top eight.
The former Celtic coach wrote a heartfelt resignation letter, directed at the club’s CEO Khumbulani Konco, before leaving the City of Roses to relocate to Durban where he’ll manage Golden Arrows. In the lengthy letter Komphela pleads with Celtic’s management that with all their financial challenges “abnormal can never be the normal”.
Komphela states that his resignation letter is a follow-up on a grievances letter he wrote in October which was never addressed. The 51-year-old, who weathered a heavy storm at Kaizer Chiefs, lays bare a number of decisions that led to him tendering his resignation. Most of them show a team in disarray and doesn’t respect their players and technical team. Komphela starts by mentioning how dire the conditions are in their training base, “the worst condition ever for a professional club” – he writes.
He also mentions how he had to use his own money to pay for the transportation of players from both the men and women’s team, paying for independent analysts to dissect their opponents and even forking out petrol money so that the grass at the training field could be cut.
But the biggest revelation is how all of this chaos is affecting the players, which could have serious repercussions on the team’s future and their sale. Komphela hints that the club could be relegated if they don’t change their ways. Relegation would drastically decrease its value.
“Recently I’ve had to intervene and talk to players about being disrespectful. Our players have lost respect for us. They’ve lost trust (and) credibility in us,” Komphela wrote.
“I am in serious trouble (in terms) of keeping them focused. It’s just a matter of time before things go wrong. Please, I beg everyone, let us do something because we have a unique environment and special supporters who love this team. We cannot accept abnormal as normal. We cannot allow wrongs to be treated as right. We have huge professional and business responsibilities at our different portfolios.
“We have accepted wrong things and are behaving as if everything is normal, and we (are) doing nothing about it. We are facing great danger yet we are so oblivious of these circumstances. It is wrong. It is dangerous. We need to take pride and act now.”
The second half of the season will be a baptism of fire for Celtic now that their problems have been laid bare and the man who tried to keep it all together has left. Their porous defence will be tested without Lorenzo Gordinho who returned to Chiefs months after Alfred Ndengane was sold to Orlando Pirates to pay some of their bills.
Phunya Sele Sele will find it hard to attract players and a new coach with news of them not honouring their financial obligations now in the public domain along with the administrative chaos. With a disillusioned group of players and it being harder to recruit quality players, it will take a herculean effort for Celtic to retain their status in the Premier Division.