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Dembare's Silva given last chance

by Petros Kausiyo
08 Apr 2016 at 06:42hrs | Views
PREMIERSHIP giants Dynamos have issued a chilling warning to their coach Paulo Silva to change his behaviour and work harmoniously with his technical team, players and other stakeholders or face the axe from domestic club football's most demanding job.

This comes amid revelations that the Glamour Boys management's patience with the Portuguese expatriate is wearing thin.

Silva's conduct was the major item on the agenda of an emergency meeting of the Dynamos management on Wednesday night after the gaffer once again fell foul of the DeMbare disciplinary code.

In just four months at the popular Harare giants, Silva has ruffled feathers with not only members of his technical crew but even his players, the media and other stakeholders.

The Dynamos leadership, led by president Kenny Mubaiwa, was forced to convene an emergency meeting on Wednesday night to discuss Silva's latest act of misconduct after the gaffer clashed with Prophetic Healing And Deliverance Ministries leader Walter Magaya during a practice match between DeMbare and Division One outfit Gunners.

In the mayhem that followed his fit of rage, Silva also turned on goalkeepers' coach Gift "Umbro'' Muzadzi and skipper Augustine Mbara and threatened to strip the defender of the captaincy of Dynamos.

In just about every month of his tenure at Dynamos, Silva has hogged the limelight for the wrong reasons having also clashed with a ZBC TV newsnet crew and just last Saturday vented his anger and frustration on the SuperSport technicians who were covering live his team's 2016 Premiership opener against champions Chicken Inn at Barbourfields.

It emerged that after Wednesday night's emergency meeting, Silva was then handed a warning letter in which the Dynamos management made it clear they could send him packing if there is no improvement in his conduct.

Dynamos secretary-general Webster Chikengezha revealed yesterday that they had not only warned Silva but also challenged his backroom staff that includes assistant coach Lloyd Mutasa and team manager Richard Chihoro to "work harmoniously to achieve the results that the club desires''.

"We have warned the coach of conduct and that he is tarnishing the image of Dynamos. We warned him that any continuation of that kind of behaviour will see him being brought to a disciplinary hearing, which may cause his dismissal.

"He had clashes with not only his technical team but outside people and that is not necessary.

"We also warned the rest of the technical team to desist from the blame game that has been happening when things do not go right like the defeat at Barbourfields. We win and lose as a team and we should always be united in the club,'' Chikengezha said.

Pressure is slowly mounting on Silva after the Portuguese received a reality check on Day One of the championship season after his charges who later finished the game with 10 men crumbled in the second half.

Silva's questionable decision to declare Takesure Chinyama's career over will always be brought into the spotlight each time Dynamos struggle for precision in front of goal.

Chinyama has resurfaced in an even tougher league in Poland raising questions on whether the big forward had really become excess baggage at Dynamos or whether it was about a personal clash with Silva.

Dynamos will now face former coach David "Yogi" Mandigora's Triangle at Rufaro tomorrow seeking to immediately bounce back and get their 2016 campaign underway after last weekend's false start.

It will be Silva's first real taste of a Dynamos home match as all his previous encounters with the vociferous DeMbare fans have come in the two months of pre-season build-up.

Chikengezha also announced that the Dynamos management have moved to instil discipline in their side by introducing penalties for red and yellow cards which their players would have picked "unnecessarily''.

Forward Richard Kawondera who was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 3-0 defeat by Chicken Inn is set to be the first recipient of the in-house sanctions that Dynamos will impose for "unwarranted cards''.

"As a club we are taking serious action for unnecessary conduct whereby people pick red cards, yellow cards or whereby a member of the technical team gets an unwarranted ejection from the bench. We want t0 instil discipline in our club and not to haggle unnecessarily with match officials.

"So we are coming up with punitive fines besides the two-match suspensions. We have spoken to our players and they have welcomed the fines and already there is a change of behaviour.

"That red card that Kawondera picked was very unnecessary and it cost the team and we are going to take action on that one. We are a big team and for us to needlessly get a red card on the first day of the season is not tolerable,'' Chikengezha said.

The Dynamos secretary-general was also hopeful that their proposed launch of an official club website would help in the dissemination of official DeMbare news.

"At the moment we have had problems with social media's speculative stories but there is nothing that we can do control that.

"The institution called Dynamos is so political and there are so many people with various interest but 95 percent of the information on social media about Dynamos is speculation and we are finalising on our club website which we believe will help give our stakeholders daily updates that would be official.

"Just recently we had the social media claiming that Elisha Muroiwa had gone to Kaizer Chiefs yet it is common knowledge that the transfer window in South Africa is closed.

"So we do realise that without an official communication platform from us, speculation becomes even more vibrant,'' Chikengezha said.

Source - the herald