OPINION: Coaches work with tied hands

Romain Folz became the first DStv Premiership coach this season to leave his job on Sunday, as he walked away from Marumo Gallants, telling Soccer Laduma that club management had tried to interfere with team selection.

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This ought to be astonishing news, that a club’s top brass would tell a head coach who to pick, but in the Premier Soccer League it’s more a case of “Oh, another one?”.

Too many club executives don’t seem to understand, unfortunately, that if you pick someone to coach your team, it would be really nice if you also let them select their match-day squad, along with their starting eleven.

And if you don’t trust them to do that, why on earth did you hire them in the first place?

Gallants chairman Abram Sello told SuperSport TV that he hadn’t received any official resignation from Folz, but given the circumstances, it will be surprising if we see the 32-year-old back on the bench this season.

Gallants hadn’t won a game all season, though under Folz they had also only lost once, and it is hard to see any coach getting results, frankly, under these circumstances.

Gallants seemed to descend even further into pettiness on Sunday, naming Folz as an assistant coach on their team sheet, which had the look of a deliberate sleight against the Frenchman, even if it wasn’t.

Gallants will probably claim that Folz was never told who to pick in his team, of course, but this constant theme within the local game just refuses to go away.

It’s just a part of the culture, some might say, and if you are a coach and want to survive, at certain clubs you just have to suck it up. But why should you? If Folz is telling the truth, good for him for having principles.

None of this reflects well, of course, on a PSL that likes to think of itself as one of the best-run in Africa and the world.

It is also a bit weird, while we are on the subject of the PSL, that they have decided to charge Kaizer Chiefs over the pitch invasion at the Danie Craven Stadium in the MTN8 quarterfinals, when Amakhosi were playing away to Stellenbosch.

There should first be some kind of blame attributed to the league, for agreeing to play the game at a venue that is not suitable to the large crowds that Chiefs will always attract.

And secondly, surely it is the responsibility of the home side to make sure the correct security is in place on match day?

Sure, Chiefs fans invaded the pitch, but if there was a pitch invasion, it was always likely to come from supporters of the more popular side, by a massive distance.

Charging Chiefs if the game had been at FNB Stadium would have made sense, but this does not, and one hopes Amakhosi are not held to task for simply being popular.

It is Stellenbosch, as the home side, who should bear the brunt of any PSL charges.

And, while it is “fair” on some level that a team is allowed to play a “home” quarterfinal on its own patch, if the Danie Craven Stadium is not a suitable venue, why not move the match to a larger stadium, like a Cape Town Stadium, under-used as a venue in any case, and perfectly capable of hosting more fans?