Tembo’s unreasonable dismissal

It’s understandable and justifiable for clubs to relieve underperforming coaches of their duties, but coach Kaitano Tambo’s sacking at SuperSport United was unreasonable. For someone so acquainted with the club culture as Tembo, it’s safe to say that a lot was expected from his appointment by the management. But it was so unrealistic of the club to expect him to continually win some silverware with limited resources.

Ever since the successive reigns of former coaches Cavin Johnson and Stuart Baxter, SuperSport has never really dipped into the market and invested heavily in the squad. For his part, Tembo never got the backing enjoyed by his predecessors. It has always been academy graduates and the ageing players, while the club looked to make profit off its star players.

Put simply, the club has become profit-orientated over the last few years. Instead of building a competitive squad around their star players, SuperSport has disappointingly turned into a selling-club.

To this end, SuperSport has preferred to sell its star player [ Teboho Mokoena] to the richest club in the country in the form of Mamelodi Sundowns, which makes economic sense for now but paints an otherwise blurry picture about the future. It’s not a secret that when Sundowns wants a player, they don’t mind coughing out any amount to match the price-tag that the selling club slaps on the player’s head to sign him.

Apart from their suspended star player, Sipho Mbule, who reportedly has had his head turned elsewhere despite the club preferring to sell him to Sundowns, SuperSport has, over the last few years, sold key players such as Jeremy Brockie, Reyaad Pieterse, Maphosa Modiba, Grant Kekana and Mokoena to their crosstown rivals.

Tembo is not a magician, that we know, but by reaching two MTN8 Cup finals and winning one with a worn-out squad and on a shoestring budget, he has overachieved. By Manare ‘Ngwan’a bakgekolo’ Matabola, Rheinland farm, Polokwane