It is something of an indictment on local coaches, or perhaps just the clouded thinking of owners, that a youthful Frenchman with no substantive coaching experience has been handed the AmaZulu.
Romain Folz is but 32-years-old and served a limited apprenticeship as the assistant to a handful of other French coaches working in Africa, before going out on his own in Botswana.
It is, with respect, a major leap between the Botswana league and the DStv Premiership but Folz somehow landed a job with at Marumo Gallants the start of the season.
Predictably, he lasted only six games and none of them a win. Yet, astonishingly, the young Frenchman has since been offered the job at AmaZulu, in a co-coaching partnership with Ayanda Dlamini.
Firstly, it is a real pick in the pants for local coaches that there is no one considered more competent or capable to take one of the bigger jobs in the local game.
Secondly, what is the mindset of owners who would hire a 32-year-old foreigner? What is it that he has that the local guys don’t possess in their coaching armoury? Surely not knowledge of the local terrain, the players in the DStv Premiership etc. He won’t have any real game time experience either. Maybe a bit of alternate theory on how to play the game? Perhaps he makes a bigger impression on the players? His motivational skills are good? Is it because he is from Europe? Who knows. It’s hard to fathom and, to my mind, a complete shot in the dark.
Both AmaZulu and Gallants have been bought in recent years by businessmen, supposedly rich and successful enough to take on the financial burden and vanity project that is owning a football club.
Usually, these successful businesspeople know the value of hiring good personnel to work for them.
Therefore, it astounds me that they made such poor choices when hiring coaches for their club, which is akin to appointing a CEO to a large size business. I wonder, loudly here, how their businesses prove profitable when their decision making seems so random.