Paying price for failure

ALL good things do come to an end, they say, and that cannot be more true than this week’s developments when three sporting personalities of extraordinary coaching and playing ability were forced to throw in the towel.

The skeptics would say it is about time because success is very much measured in terms of material gains such as silverware – and the bottom line that shapes club owners’ thinking.

Two astute coaches – Arsene Wenger and Steve Komphela – had the mastery to draw the best out of their players and most often their teams did respond in the appropriate manner.

Wenger has been at the helm of Arsenal for 22 years and has enjoyed great success winning three English Premier League titles and an astonishing seven FA cups since taking over the reins in 1996.

But such is the fickleness of the Gunners fans that statistics and past glories don’t mean anything – they wanted the team to win the league on the domestic front and do much better in the Champions League in Europe this season. Their patience with Wenger was running thin as he promised to deliver, but always fell short.

And despite the great faith the club’s chief executive Ivan Gazidis, who has family links in East London, the 68-year-old manager finally realised that the writing was on the wall: it is best to go when you ahead rather than get sacked, it seems. That would’ve been an undignified exit that Wenger did not deserve.

On the domestic front, it is the lack of results by Kaizer Chiefs in the three seasons that he has been in charge, that forced Komphela to quit. Under his mentorship, the club had not won any trophies and the pressure from Chiefs’ demanding fans was unrelenting. He had to go.

He said as much to the media, conceding that he failed and it was right he depart from the club. He feared the poor results would lead to to even more unruliness by the club’s fans - as was seen in Durban last week. “If (the chaos) has to stop by me being just outside the scenario‚ even with two matches to go‚ do it,” he said.

It appears outside forces also had a hand in former Bok hero Bryan Habana’s decision to quit the sport. The player who held South Africans in awe over the years with 124 Springbok caps and a record 67 Test tries to his credit, says he was “forced” to quit.

His coach at French club Toulon refused to use him even when Habana felt he was fit enough to take his place in the team.

Such are the vagaries of sport – good today, gone tomorrow. That is just the way life is.