Mozambican companies join together to support Mambas participation in CAN 2023
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Feizal Sidat accused the current coach of the national football team- a former striker in Sporting, Belenenses and Vitória de Setúbal – of violating his employment contract.
The president of the Mozambican Football Federation (FMF), Feizal Sidat, on Wednesday accused the national coach, Chiquinho Conde, of “ingratitude”. Regarding renewal of the coach’s contract, which ends on July 31st, Sidat left the matter open.
The national coach cannot “be ungrateful towards the person who guarantees his salary”, Sidat said at a press conference about the FMF’s results for the first half of the year.
“I’m not saying that we will or will not renew his contract, there has to be an agreement between the parties, the contract is ending, we still have 40 more days with ‘Mister’ Chiquinho,” he declared.
The president of the FMF accused the current national coach – former Sporting, Belenenses and Vitória de Setúbal striker – of violating his employment contract by making accusations against his employer in public and on social media, and claiming purely for himself and for the players the merit of the ‘Mambas’ victories, leaving out “all the collective work”.
Feizal Sidat said that Chiquinho Conde disrespected him in the presence of the national team players: by demanding ice in the locker room after the game in which Mozambique guaranteed access to the final phase of the African Nations Championship (CHAN), a tournament played only by players who play on the continent.
The leader of the Mozambican Football federation further alleged that the coach had also humiliated former Sporting player Paíto, currently vice-president of the FMF for the national teams, by banning him from entering the team’s bus and locker room.
“My vice-president deserves to have all due respect, but was banned from getting on the bus, he wept,” Sidat said.
He also said that the FMF had saved Chiquinho Conde from unemployment in Portugal, the country where he lives, and pays him a salary higher than what “ministers and perhaps the President of the Republic” earn in Mozambique.
“We pay [the national coach, the equivalent of] 120 minimum wages and he lives in an upscale neighbourhood” in Maputo, Sidat said.
The FMF leader’s statements followed those of the Mozambican coach on the 11th of this month, in which he admitted the possibility of his not continuing with the team, citing unspecified “adversities”.
“They [the players] knew that this could be my last game as head of the national team,” Conde said after the Mambas’ 1-0 victory against Guinea-Conakry in the fourth round of the Group G of the African qualifying zone for the 2026 World Cup.
Conde said, without going into details, that he regretted that some people were not “focused on the purpose” of seeing the team win.
“We are achieving something, when people least expected it,” Conde said, describing the players as “brave” for having made a long trip after playing and beating Somalia 2-1 in Maputo on Friday.
Doubts regarding Chiquinho Conde’s continuation at the helm of the national team led some Mozambican civil society leaders to go to the FMF headquarters to demand that the organisation’s management commit to renewing the contract with the coach, a popular figure in the country.
READ: Conde: I am here to qualify Mozambique for major tournaments
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