By Velile Mnyandu
Finally, its done. Al Ahly head coach Pitso Mosimane has concluded and signed the new contract with Al Ahly and will be at the club for two more years until the 2023/2024 season.
This was confirmed by the 10 times African champions this morning following the conclusions of long and protracted negotiations between the two parties, with Mosimane’s negotiations led by his agent Moira Tlhagale of MT Sports who has always been adamant that they would only sign once everything was in order.
Mosimane, who joined Ahly in September 2020 and helped them to win the CAF Champions League title back to back, after having failed to achieve that in seven years, had already declared his willingness to continue with the African club of the century. The darling of the close to 70-million Ahly fans, is already on his third CAFCL campaign with the Egyptian giants and going for his fourth African championship title, having won the 2016 edition with Mamelodi Sundowns.
Mosimane, who has been the first coach for Ahly from the Sub-Saharan African region, has also won back to back CAF Super Cup titles and also the Egyptian League Cup
Media reports in Egypt recently speculated that Mosimane stood to pocket around R2.5-million a month from his new contract with a three-month termination clause. The new deal is believed to be a huge jump from when the 53year-old arrived at Ahly from Sundowns and will also benefit his technical team of physical conditioner Kabelo Rangoaga, video and performance analysts Musi Matlaba and Kyle Solomons. The new deal is also set to make Mosimane the highest-paid coach on the continent at club level and on the same bracket if not slightly better with some national team coaches too.
Timeline of the negotiations:
Ahly started showing interest to extend the contract after the Club World Cup first bronze medal last year in Qatar, it was for the first time they had achieved this since 2007.
They came back again strongly after Mosimane won his second CAFCL title against Kaizer Chiefs in July 2021 in Morocco.
This was after in a short space of time, he had managed to win back to back CAFCL titles.
In this two-year period, Mosimane has been at Ahly, he has won five trophies in total.
The negotiation really started around September last year and this was after the club had lost the Egyptian Super Cup and the league title but still the leadership at the club led by the President Captain El Khatib still showed its confidence in Mosimane’s services and capabilities despite the doubts from some certain sections of the fans and the media.
Captain Bibo as El Khatib is popularly known, at some stage referred to the former Bafana Bafana striker and head coach, as his prized African diamond, just an indication of how the Ahly legend values the services of Mosimane.
iDiski Times understands that the terms of the new deal had long been agreed between the two parties but there were some minor details that proved to be critical in concluding the deal but all was resolved this week.
Mosimane’s new contract confirmation comes just few days before he meets his former team Sundowns in a second Group A meeting between the two teams after the Brazilians had beaten them 1-0 in Cairo, a historic win for them against the Red Devils as it was for the first time they had managed to achieve in Egypt against the African club of the century.
Ahly are second on the log with four points, three points adrift of Sundowns, a team that Mosimane coached for eight years, won 11 trophies with them to become their most successful coach ever, including a CAFCL title, five league titles and a couple of knockout trophies.
