Official: AmaZulu Make Major Announcement

AmaZulu president Sandile Zungu has confirmed that caretaker coach Ayanda Dlamini and Romain Folz have left the club.

Zungu had invited for a press conference to “review the club’s 2022/23 season as well as unveil plans for upcoming DStv Premiership campaign” for Friday last week, but it had to be delayed.

This publication reported that Zungu opted to fire the club’s entire management, including caretaker coach Ayanda Dlamini, while several players are also on the club’s axe list.

On Monday, Zungu confirmed the club has made a host of changes to various areas of the club, with both Dlamini and Folz among those who have left.

“Ayanda is a great name in the history of AmaZulu. He’s called ‘cobra’ and scored great goals for the club,” Zungu said on Monday.

“His contribution of saving AmaZulu in the year of Covid, in the bubble is on record.

“When he replaced Romain Folz, his mandate was very simple, forget relegation. His mandate was to take AmaZulu to the top eight. He could’ve collected 18 points, which was unlikely but possible.

“His target was to bring us into the top eight and he didn’t accomplish it. He got five points, he did less than 30%, which is not a pass. It wasn’t a stellar performance, in particular by AmaZulu standards.

“I said ‘Ayanda you are not ready to assume the leadership role as AmaZulu Football Club. I want to invest in you to become a leader of AmaZulu by 2032/33.’ We discussed it and agreed to terminate his contract on that basis.”

Zungu revealed he wanted Folz to continue in an advisory role, but the French captain stated he wants to get back into coaching.

“When Ayanda was appointed as caretaker coach, I kept Folz close to me as ‘Technical Director/Advisor’. He was advising me, he gave great insight and I appreciated that,” he added.

“I’ve believed in Fahloza’s coaching methods and it is my firm belief that he’s got a role to play in AmaZulu going forward, but for now when I told him I’d like to retain him in an advisor role, he indicated that he wants to go back to the bench and resigned from his role.”

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Zungu also confirmed the club will add a Sporting Director to the club’s technical team and are also looking for a new coach.

“We’ve made quite a few changes to our club, the organigram of the club and one position we’ve added is the position of the Sporting Director,” he added.

“We are also talking to a number of coaches, both local and international to see how they can assist AmaZulu in this season and beyond.

“It our wish that we have finalised the position before the resumption of the pre-season program, hopefully much sooner than that.”

The changes come after AmaZulu only finished in 12th position on the log in 2022/23, almost trembling down into the relegation fight after changing coaches twice, with Brandon Truter and Romain Folz being shown the exit door.

Zungu himself had stated several times that his ambition for the club is to contest for the top four but they were a far cry away from that target this past campaign, with a decent run to the MTN8 final the only real highlight of their campaign.