Stars in no hurry to appoint new coach
PLATINUM Stars will begin the process of selecting a coach for the next season only once the league season is over. They have also promised caretaker Cavin Johnson he is one of the candidates.
Johnson, together with co-coach Allan Freese, has engineered a remarkable turnaround for the team after the controversy surrounding previous coach Owen da Gama.
“We are going to have a discussion and prioritise it for early next year,” says general manager Jason Raine. “We haven’t done anything yet because we are still in with a chance of making the top eight this Saturday and we don’t want to distract from that.”
Earlier this year, Dutch coach Ruud Krol was linked with the Stars job after being spotted at a match at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace taking notes for his former Orlando Pirates colleague Floyd Mbele.
Krol was again seen doing the same at Stars’ 2-1 defeat by Moroka Swallows at the weekend.
But Mbele was removed as Stars’ chairman after a boardroom tussle last month and it is not clear whether Krol is being pushed forward as a candidate for next season.
Raine says the club have been given an extensive pile of CVS of coaches, both locally and from around the world, by various agents and will go through them thoroughly. “Then we’ll pick who looks interesting and go through an interview process.”
Among the candidates already being touted is the German coach Michael Kruger, who had previous success in African club competition in recent years with Al Merriekh of Sudan and has also worked in Egypt and Tunisia.
But Johnson could well be the frontrunner. He has already previously served as a caretaker coach at Ajax Cape Town and enhanced his status with Stars’ strong run of form in recent weeks.
“He’s got to be a strong candidate because he has done a remarkable job,” adds Raine.
Johnson and Freese came in as caretakers when Da Gama was suspended for allegedly demanding money from players to play them.
Da Gama was found not guilty at the end of a drawn o ut investigation but left the club anyway.