Igesund, clubs lock horns
MAMELODI Sundowns are headed for a showdown with Gordon Igesund after the Pretoria club took exception to comments attributed to the Bafana Bafana coach this week.
Igesund has already fallen out with Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates over the past few weeks and risks a standoff with another club after he was quoted on a soccer website as saying Sundowns goalkeeper Wayne Sandilands could lose his place in the national team if he does not reclaim the No 1 jersey from club rival Kennedy Mweene.
Sundowns coach Mosimane told the Sunday Times yesterday he was surprised by Igesund’s utterances after coming to the Bafana coach’s rescue when he struggled to secure players on non-Fifa dates in the past.
‘‘I am taken aback,” Mosimane said yesterday. ‘‘I do not want to believe that after I have supported him so well (in the past). If that is true, then I will regard it as a destabilisation of my team.”
Relations between the Bafana coach and Sundowns could become frostier as an upset Mosimane said he would take the issue further with the Sundowns management.
‘‘As the head of the technical team I will take up this matter with the Downs management. I have always given the national team agenda priority whether it is a Fifa, Caf or non- Fifa dates. I remember when I was really in need of players I supported Orlando Pirates when they made the Caf Champions League group stages.”
Igesund admitted yesterday that while he did tell the Kickoff website that Sandilands’ lack of game time at Sundowns was a concern for the national team, he never suggested that the goalkeeper should find another club if he wanted to keep his place in the Bafana squad.
‘‘I said Wayne has to fight for his place and compete with another equally good keeper in Kennedy Mweene,” Igesund said.
Igesund was confronted by the club-versus-country tensions only a few weeks ago when Kaizer Chiefs general manager Bobby Motaung refused to make Siphiwe Tshabalala, Reneilwe Letsholonyane, Bernard Parker, Eric Mathoho and Tefo Mashamaite available for Bafana’s Cosafa Cup squad in June.
The national coach faced another dilemma this week after he called up six Pirates players to the Bafana squad to face Nigeria in the Nelson Mandela Challenge in Durban on Wednesday, and Burkina Faso at FNB Stadium on Saturday.
But Pirates were not comfortable with the selections as they play against Egyptian side Zamalek in a crucial Caf Champions League fixture on the very same day as the friendly against Burkina Faso.
‘‘It’s not my duty to call every coach in the Premier Soccer League and ask them if I could choose their players.
“On the Fifa date I have to choose the best team possible,” Igesund said.