As a professional Zungu has lost my respect

We have to applaud Pitso Mosimane. For so long we have enjoyed teasing the Mamelodi Sundowns coach for his sometimes angry reactions to situations including bust-ups with referees and other officials.

I must admit I waited with anticipation for his response after Bongani Zungu’s demeaning and generally disrespectful tweets where he claimed it was Rhulani Mokwena who was doing all the coaching at Sundowns which is why the team were so successful when he was there.

Zungu went on to credit Pirates’ recent good run to Mokwena, saying he is the one doing the work. He also dragged other players like Keagan Dolly into it by saying they could attest to what he was saying. He has since deleted the tweet and apologised to Pirates – but NOT to Mosimane and Dolly – for bringing their names into disrepute.

I was embarrassed on Zungu’s behalf and lost all respect for him as a professional when I saw the tweet. We all know such things happen – and maybe he was totally right – but for him to go public with it was just unprofessional and disrespectful.

He has created an unnecessary crisis for the Pirates management who will now have to manage the situation which might cause divisions in their camp if left unattended. Zungu and Mokwena are known to be close and it feels like it is something they discuss when they are together. It has already divided the fans as some believe

Sibongiseni Gumbi

him and say Micho can go and the team will be fine under Mokwena while others feel Micho should be protected and respected.

There have been a barrage of videos showing Mokwena to be undermining or disregarding Sredojevic in the Pirates dugout. All these things are not just painting Zungu as a bad person, but Mokwena and others are now also involved as their names and reputations are now subject to public opinion, unnecessarily.

Zungu’s apology doesn’t seem to show he understands how much damage and harm his statement could do to people who had no business with them. In his apology he just said he was misunderstood – not that he was wrong.

Judging by their closeness with Mokwena, one would think he has his contact details and could have easily sent him a message to congratulate him if he felt it was all his doing that Pirates have hit top form. Pirates have been quiet on the issue but I think Micho might have to address it today after their match against Sundowns as it is likely to come up in the postmatch media conference.

One hopes Pirates are doing something on the matter behind the scenes to ensure it does minimum damage to the club.

I think you are now wondering why I applauded Mosimane when I started this column. Well, Pitso was mature in his response and perhaps rightly sarcastic too.

“When Rhulani was here, we won trophies, when he was not we won trophies. Last season everyone said that now that Rhulani is gone let’s see (what will happen). We lifted a trophy. I like Rhulani, I have a soft spot for him and Orlando Pirates because I wore that badge and Irvin Khoza is a good chairman. God knows the truth, let’s leave it there,” said Mosimane.

And then came my favourite part: “By the way, even if he was (doing all the coaching), he was getting paid to do it. It was his job, I don’t want useless assistant coaches here.”