Cusin: Leopards made me a fool

“I stayed three months without a salary.”

“They made me a fool.”

An adventure gone horribly wrong. How else would one sum up the experience of Stefano Cusin, who joined Black Leopards as technical director before the beginning of the season and came highly recommended, having plied his trade in different parts of the world over more than 20 years and armed with an array of qualifications. His interview with Soccer Laduma in edition 1088 told of a man well versed in the game of football and who had come to the Limpopo-based side to make a positive contribution rather than for self-gain. How things change. The Italian only spent three months at the club, who revealed that ‘things did not work out’ with the 49-year-old. How so? As Soccer Laduma’s Celine Abrahams found out in this exclusive interview, there are always two sides to a story and there is more to this parting of ways than meets the eye. Read on!

Celine Abrahams: Stefano, you stayed less than six months as Black Leopards Technical Director, with word coming out being that you were not the perfect fit for them. However, you have contacted us to set the record straight…

Stefano Cusin: You know, I am a little bit surprised because I am professional and this is not my habit to read into these kinds of things and speak out about stuff. What more can we expect from poor people who tell lies? These stories are of course not true. When you look at my CV, I am coming from different leagues, (have) good experience and do you think I have time to look at Black Leopards and worry about their poor decisions? No, I don’t have time for that! Before I came to South Africa I didn’t know the difference between Leopards and… err, I don’t know… let me say Golden Arrows, for example. I didn’t know the difference, you understand. So it was only when I was there with all the difficult things that I had to face every day that I discovered that it was impossible to work with the club. CA: Why do you say that? SC: The first point is that they made (called) the press conference early in July when I arrived and, after three months, I am still without (a) work permit. Without it, it was impossible to work because I could not open an account at any bank, meaning that the club wasn’t paying me. I stayed three months without a salary and, also, the club were working like an amateur team – this is the big problem there at Leopards. I was hoping to give better material for training, but I didn’t find professional people around me. There was always a matter. They did not understand what I was trying to say and to do with the team. There was always a problem to work together. So, after three months of working like this, of me being without getting money, without getting (a) salary, without a work permit visa, I did not enjoy my job. We were not growing as a team because the people there are so amateurish and this, for me, was the point that I decided to leave.

CA: You obviously did not keep quiet about the situation, but what was the management saying to you?

SC: Well, you know, I write many reports. Every two, three weeks I was writing reports for the club and I would write at the end about the issue of my salary. One month, two months and nothing. I would tell them that I need my work visa, but still the situation would stay the same. They knew that I needed all of this to work, so they were always saying, “Ah, yes, next week, next week”, but that next week wasn’t coming. Regarding this kind of issue, I don’t want to talk about the football side because this is something that is a secret between me and the club. And this is not nice, you know, to work for one club and after that to stop working there and speak bad about them. No, it is not good and it is not my style. But what I can say is the truth and tell you the story. The story is that I signed a three-year contract and the club didn’t give me my work permit. They put me in trouble, these people. I say this because now I have a problem with the South African authority because I stayed more than three months in the country

and I have Visa prob- lems, so that’s why I decided to leave and go back to Italy. I have written a letter to the South African authority to explain the situation because I am in trouble for something that the club promised to sort out for me. The club failed to organise my work permit and this is something unbelievable, what they did to me. How can they do this to the people they have employed? I spoke with my boss (David Thidiela) and I told him that I don’t want to stay anymore in his club because no one is serious there. I told him that they have an amateur club and not professional enough for us to work together. They made me a fool. They put me in trouble. Before I came to South Africa, I had many offers, even from one other club in the country, but they told me, “No, come here to us. You are going to be the boss.” But in the end they didn’t even make five percent of the things that they said. I wrote the reports to explain how to work as a professional team, how to do things every day on the field with the first team, every single day and I don’t know who that person was that said that I was not involved in the first team. That is all not true!

CA: Seeing that you spoke to Mr Thidiela, what was his response to you?

SC: Look, I had many meetings with him and every time he would say tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, and in the end, I told him, “If you don’t allow me to leave the club, I will take the case to FIFA. I have a right to and you can’t take your professional coach from Europe to come here and suffer like this in Polokwane for three months without a permit and a salary. How can you do this to another person?” In the end, I called my agent and I told him, “Look, tell the boss that I am going to leave the country because I cannot be here under these circumstances.” I didn’t want to get into more trouble with the country because of what the club could not solve from when I came here. Yes, I told the boss that I want to leave the club because they cannot do these things to professional people. I read a lot of things on the internet of the club and how they have been treating other employees that were in the club before, but it was too late for me to turn back. I had signed and I had come here, looking to share my experience. Look, when you have poor management, it is normal that everything else is poor in the club because the decisions and the organisation are poor. Behind the big club, there is a big man behind there always, in every club in the world. I used to work with big people and I was used to people with good management and they know how to work and that’s why at Leopards the results are not so good because of these kinds of things that happen. CA: Please elaborate. SC: I mean that in football you need two things – money and an idea. Mr Thidiela, always when we met, he was in meetings and he would tell the staff to work and to make sure that everything gets sorted out for Mr Stefano Cusin; make sure that his accommodation is okay. But these people failed to do it because, in the end, I didn’t want to say that the problem was this one or that one. But I was there three months without all the things that I needed. I could not work as I wanted to, I could not organise my work the way I knew how to, so it was best for me to leave. That’s why it was better for me to stop the job with them because even a lot of clubs from Europe were calling me and I thought: why must I stay there and suffer when I have other options? I had no reason to stay. I came to South Africa to build a winning team. I was excited to come into the country and get the chance to be in a new team in a country that I had never worked in before. I thought everything was professional and I was going into the team to improve what was already there. But I discovered that everybody knew this, that Leopards were not good. Many people, many chairmen from different clubs, asked me, “Why Leopards? A coach with your background and with your CV and you go to Black Leopards!” I didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me, but it wasn’t a good organisation for me. CA: Hmm. SC: Emotionally, I feel very bad, of course, because before I joined Leopards, I was close to signing for another club. It was a bad moment for me. They made everything seem so good for me to come to the club and I was also so excited to go and work for the team. I saw some of the other clubs, they were organised - even Polokwane City were better organised than Leopards. I was in the right country, but at the wrong club. I would for sure come back to the country to work there if another team wanted me. I’m never coming back to Black Leopards! That is 100 percent for sure. They did not have the professionalism to work with me. We will see what will happen in the future. They didn’t know how to work with me and they were very amateur. I’m so sorry that I have to say this to you about a team in your country, but it needs to come out because there are lies that are being told about what really happened. They fired my fitness coach (Jean Luca Sorini) after three weeks without any reason. The goalkeeper coach also left because he was not happy about the club and the style that was there. I was under stress for three months because you are working far from your country and to be treated so bad is not nice. Every day of those three months I was thinking what my next step is. The only thing that I would say I liked there was the players. CA: So what’s the next step? SC: The next step for me is to look at the options that I have. In a month’s time, I will work again, but for now, I need rest after all the drama I have faced. I used too much energy in that time and this was the worst and the hardest experience in my life.

CA: We’re sorry to hear of your unfortunate experience and hopefully all will work out for you soon, Stefano.

SC: Thank you.