Mkhuphali Masuku misses out

MKHUPHALI Masuku's dream to lead Harare City in the league this season was dashed yesterday after the club decided to elevate his assistant Mike Madzivanyika to the hot seat as the new Zifa regulations continue to take a toll on under-qualified coaches.

Masuku, who was handed the reins at the ambitious Harare side following the sacking of Moses Chunga, is likely to be reassigned to another role in the club's juniors structures.

Harare City secretary-general Matthew Marara yesterday confirmed to our Harare Bureau that they had reshuffled their technical department to meet the standards set by Zifa ahead of the coming season.

A holder of Caf B and Uefa B badges Masuku, who has previously coached Highlanders and Caps United, has become the latest casualty of the new order in the domestic Premiership.

Marara announced that Madzivanyika, a beneficiary of the latest Caf Licence course held at the Zifa Village a few days ago, will now take over the job while they hunt for a new assistant who is also a holder of a Caf A Licence.

"Our head coach is now Mike Madzivanyika as from today (yesterday). We are still looking for an assistant coach.

"We have to follow the directives but we have a contract with Masuku which we need to honour and that would mean we will have to reassign him to the structures," said Marara.

Zifa have since announced that starting from this season head coaches and their assistants have to be in possession of CAF A Licences to sit on the bench as part of the Association's drive to improve the technical appreciation and quality of the game in line with the global standards.

This has left the Sunshine Boys with no choice but to join other clubs like Dynamos and Yadah Stars in implementing this directive.

Newboys Yadah Stars were the first when they replaced Kudakwashe Masaraure with Jairos Tapera because of the stringent requirements.

Just a few days ago Dynamos reassigned their assistant coach Murape Murape, who is a holder of a Caf C Licence, to the junior structures.

Masuku had been heavily involved in the pre-season preparations and had just returned from the Eastern Highlands with the team where they had camped for two weeks as part of team building.

The former Zimbabwe international missed the opportunity to attend the Caf A Course as he was busy with the national team duty for the recent Afcon tournament in Gabon.