Back in April it was dramatically confirmed that Stuart Baxter – who was in his second stint with Kaizer Chiefs – had been officially shown the door by Amakhosi.
Chiefs then moved to appointed Athur Zwane as the official head coach, while they’ve overhauled the squad during this past ‘off-season’, offloading players deemed surplus to requirement, while also making several new signings.
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Notably, in a recent interview with the Sunday Times, chairman Kaizer Motaung was quoted as saying that Baxter displayed a reluctance to use young players.
When speaking to SABC Sport, though, Baxter has refuted this, and shed light on his relationship with sporting director Kaizer Motaung Jnr.
In another interview, Baxter also suggested that when he was sidelined with Covid-19 during an outbreak of the illness towards the of last year, his assistants, Zwane and Dillon Sheppard, undermined him by changing the line-up.
Zwane further stated that former goalkeeper-coach, Baxter’s son Lee, undermined him and Sheppard when they took over as caretaker coaches.
“I’m really disappointed. But to be quite honest I don’t care,” Zwane said at Chiefs’ media day on Thursday, as quoted by TimesLive.
“If he [Baxter] can elaborate on when he says we ‘backstabbed’ him — how? Because we thought we were working with someone we could learn from, someone who would be our mentor.
“… And unfortunately we’re discussing this today. I’m a bit disappointed because people must just own up. If things did not work out they did not work out — you don’t have to shift the blame and point fingers.
“He’s the one who said he didn’t want the young players. And I don’t know why he was saying that. But if he wants us to challenge him head on then we will do it because they come here and disrespect us and expect us to keep quiet.
“His son ‘back-stabbed’ us, because he was a problem this one,” Zwane sensationally added.
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Stuart Baxter had revealed that certain differences of opinion with the Chiefs’ sporting director led to a breakdown in the relationship.
“We did talk about some of the players that would come in, we did speak about the young players. I read an article where the chairman said, ‘Stuart didn’t play the young players and it was in his contract.’ It wasn’t in my contract, certainly,” he told SABC Sport.
“What was clear was that Kaizer Chiefs didn’t want to be a team that were doing what they’re doing now – buying six or seven players every year because that’s the opposite of producing your own players.
“So, what we wanted to do was produce our own players and then buy one or two special players, with special requirements and skillsets that would embellish the team. Now, I don’t think that was ever mentioned [to the public].
“I told everybody at regular meetings why I was being patient with some of the younger players but partly because I thought the older players – the Keagan Dolly’s and Khama Billiat’s – were ahead of them in the pecking order, but we would work actively to give [the youngsters] minutes and get them in to gradually replace [the older players] in a couple of seasons.
“Everybody was ok with that, on the surface. Obviously not now, because the chairman finds it relevant to go out and accuse me of not wanting to play the kids, which is not true.
“[With Kaizer Jnr] we butted heads very early, and I think he realised that if I was around then all these things he wanted to do were not going to be smooth, I wouldn’t want to bring in a player I didn’t need.
“We discussed the way forward for the club, new targets, who should stay and who should go, we didn’t agree on a lot of those things and I think, without saying it, it was just becoming a mission for him to try to make the changes he needed to proceed with his program.”
Kaizer Chiefs embarrassingly crashed out of the Nedbank Cup last season, while they had underperformed in the DStv Premiership to be left stranded in fifth position when Baxter was let go.
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Baxter previously revealed that he felt things were close to clicking for Chiefs
Previously, the veteran coach stated that he actually felt the team could have rebounded to finish as runners-up in the Premiership, which would have secured Amakhosi a place in the CAF Champions League.
“When you don’t get to finish that, of course you are not happy. Of course, I’d have liked to continue and see what we could do. But I have to say, the conditions became not conducive for either me or Chiefs,” said Baxter, who left the club despite still having a year left on his contract.
“So, we sat down and agreed to part company. And that is sad for me because of what I’ve just said. Therefore, I would have liked to continue because I think we could’ve finished top two and I don’t where the table will finish now, but I just think that there’s a sadness for my side that we didn’t get to do that. It wasn’t the way I thought it would be when I actually came back. As things unfolded it wasn’t what I thought it would be.”
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