Kaizer Motaung Jnr. has given a clear response to Manqoba Mngqithi’s comments about Kaizer Chiefs hosting Al Ahly at Naturena Village last week.
Mngqithi had expressed his disappointment after his side completed a historic double over Al Ahly in the CAF Champions League that Chiefs had opened their training facilities to the African champions and also allowed them to use the main change room at FNB Stadium.
The Sundowns coach called Chiefs antics “spiteful” and “unpatriotic”, with Motaung Jnr. now confirming that Amakhosi’s leadership was quite disappointed with his words.
“I wanted to address the comments made by my esteemed colleague at Sundowns, Manqoba Mngqithi,” he said on the first KhosiSpaces, hosted by Chiefs on Wednesday.
“Actually it’s very disappointing because as a club it’s very important for us to show camaraderie ship for the bigger picture of the football industry as we hosted Al Ahly at the Village.
“We heard the comments of coach Mngqithi and why I feel it’s disappointing, it’s quite unsportsmanlike because instead of a head coach focussing on actually a great achievement the club had made by beating the current African champions twice, he chose to use that platform to attack us and to say some very unsportsmanlike comments in the media.
“One, for us and if we’re sitting back and someone in our organisation, if the coach commented that way, we’d be very, very upset and we’d definitely call that coach in to explain his words because it was very misplaced and quite disappointing that he said that.
“I also want to address one thing, we understand that certain people would come out say different things but at the same time for me that club is not always going to come down and respond to every small insult that’s given our way.
“We always got to be as professional as we can. Although having said that, trying to be professional. We’re extremely disappointed in the comments that he made and in my understanding looking at the leadership at Sundowns, I know they are quite disappointed.
“That’s as much as I’d say on this matter and I think he should’ve rather focussed on his own team. We’ve been traveling the continent and we know that Sundowns have been hosted by Zamalek, we’ve been hosted by Raja Casablanca when we played in the Champions League last year.
“It’s part of a bigger picture and about being professional.”
