Mwanga latest coach to demand dues
Koketso Kgoboge | Friday September 18, 2020 16:27
The Zambian coach is in dispute with his club, TAFIC, and has taken the matter to the Commissioner of Labour where he is reportedly demanding P80,000.
He has also taken former clubs, Extension Gunners and Uniao Flamingo Santos to the mother body, the Botswana Football Association (BFA) over unfulfilled obligations. He joined TAFIC in January on a three-year-contract.
“I wonder how I am expected to survive for this long without a single payment. It has become difficult, and I have run out of patience hence I have to seek help,” he said.
He threatened to take the matter up with FIFA if the situation was not addressed.
TAFIC chairperson, Carlos Sebina admitted they owed the coach and said they have been assisting with part payments owing to the current pandemic situation.“We owe him Mwanga and we will definitely pay him. We have been trying to assist as far as we can with part payments and groceries for all our technical staff,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Botswana Football Coaches Association (BFCA) has expressed concern with the growing cases of breach of contracts by clubs against coaches.
BFCA president, Nelson Olebile confirmed they had also received several reports of cases of such nature from their members.
“We have many such reports from our members, and we also see a lot of these cases in the media. It is a concern to us because this simply shows how our clubs take coaches for granted,” he said. He noted that the BFCA would always follow up issues reported to them. Olebile said in many instances, they were limited when cases were already reported to the Commissioner of Labour or Industrial Court. “At these institutions (Labour and Industrial Court) matters prolong, and most coaches lose out because club administration changes regularly, sometimes without handovers, which is a great challenge.
“Our coaches also prefer to keep mum about their welfare until they have parted with the clubs, which is amongst the other challenges we face, but we will address the coaches soon.”
Olebile said they had started a process, with the BFA and the Football Union Botswana (FUB), to put in place policies meant to protect local coaches and to capacitate them.
He appealed to clubs to show respect to coaches and provide a favourable environment for results rather than expect good results without proper input.
“This problem does not only affect the coaches it also affects their families, the development of players, the performance factor and consequently our national football in general.”
Enos Mmesi, who has coached several local clubs, reckoned the clubs were exploiting their love for football. Like other coaches, he said many teams owed him.
He figured the problem was a result of loose binding contracts they sign.
“We are suffering at the hands of our clubs. It is high time we (coaches) engage a legal arm that would assist us with binding contracts and crack the whip because these are mostly deliberate issues,” he said. He echoed the sentiments of Olebile that the resolutions from Labour and Industrial Court are never satisfactory and at times clubs don’t pay. “Sometimes it is not worth leaving your busy schedule to follow the matters, because at the end we lose it all.
It is unfortunate because these are the only resolution processes that we have,” the former Molepolole City Stars coach said. Keitumetse ‘Pio’ Paul has taken Notwane and Molepolole City Stars to FIFA. Dragojlo ‘Drago’ Stanojlovic also dragged five clubs, Morupule Wanderers, Sankoyo Bush Bucks, Gunners, Notwane and Mochudi Centre Chiefs to FIFA for breach of contract.