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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter

THULANI Sibanda has dumped Bulawayo Chiefs FC, a club he guided into the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League last season following the appointment of Joseph Sibindi.

Chiefs, who had applied to Zifa to have Sibanda exempted and allowed to coach while waiting to enrol for the next Caf A Licence class, appointed Sibindi as head coach last week in compliance with Zifa’s standardisation of coaches.

Zifa are yet to respond.

According to the Zifa standardisation of coaches, Premier Soccer League clubs are expected to hire heads of technical teams that are holders of Caf A badges.

Sibindi, who was introduced to the technical team last Thursday, held his first training session at Chiefs on Tuesday, the day Sibanda delivered his resignation letter.

Chiefs issued a statement confirming Sibanda’s departure on Wednesday, wishing the coach, who won them the First Division championship twice in 2013 and 2017, the best in his next challenge.

“Bulawayo Chiefs would like to let the football fraternity and the world at large know that one of our technical team members Thulani Sibanda has since decided to seek a more prominent coaching role with another team. This follows the enforcement of the Caf A requirement for head coaches and assistant coaches. Coach Thulani Sibanda has been a very valuable member of the team and he leaves Chiefs to go and pursue a head coaching career within his qualifications in another division,” read a statement from Chiefs.

The club, which is in its second season in the topflight, said “a full list of our 2019 technical team as well as head coach will be announced in due time”.

It is not clear if Sibindi, who had a brief Premiership coaching stint with now defunct Bantu Rovers and last year guided former topflight side Tsholotsho to a second place finish in the Zifa Southern Region Division One League, will keep the remaining members of the Chiefs technical team that was involved in assembling the 2019 squad.

The remaining members of Chiefs’ technical team are Mduduzi Mpofu, a teacher at Milton Junior School, goalkeepers’ trainer Nkosiyazi Ncube and former Highlanders’ defender Anzilom Ndlovu, who has also been doubling up as a juniors’ coach.

The 40-year-old Sibanda joined Chiefs while in the Zifa Southern Region Division One League in April 2012, leading them to a fourth place finish. The following season Chiefs won the championship, but the club directors sold the Premiership franchise to Bantu Rovers.

In 2014, Sibanda joined Black Mambas, now known as ZRP FC in the Northern Region, when they were position 14 after 12 games and finished the season in fifth. He returned to Chiefs in 2015 and finished second to Bulawayo City.

In 2016, he left Chiefs at the top of the table after eight games to join Chicken Inn as assistant coach to Rahman Gumbo and was recalled by the club with 10 First Division games left. 

Sibanda then won Chiefs the PSL promotion ticket in 2017.

Sibanda, who rose into prominence in 2011 when he guided defunct Quelaton to the Zifa Southern Region Division One title that earned them a direct ticket into the Premiership, said he is in no rush to make his next move.

“Last year I had Garthly Chipuka screening me and I feel that it’s time that I refocus and face new challenges. I’m not attached and will not be rushing to make any decisions,” he said. — @ZililoR.