Former Kaizer Chiefs skipper and South African football legend Neil Tovey has shared his views of what has led to the continuing decline of the Glamour boys.
The mission to wake up the sleeping Soweto giants and end the nine-season trophy drought has not gone according to plan yet under coach Nasreddine Nabi and his technical team.
This is after Amakhosi were dumped out of the Carling Knockout in embarrassing fashion by Mamelodi Sundowns while they haven’t had the best start to the Betway Premiership.
In the league, Chiefs have managed seven points from five outings. They have suffered two defeats, played a draw, and won the other two matches.
Amakhosi are 14 points behind log leaders and bitter rivals Orlando Pirates, who have won all seven matches.
Tovey, who turned out for Amakhosi between 1990 and 1999 and enjoyed a lot of success, believes Chiefs’ management have prioritised keeping the club one of the most marketable sports brands in the country while neglecting player recruitment.
“The club has become a professional setup. They’ve gone from a very successful playing club to extremely successful marketing, and the whole situation from the perspective of media, around the club,” Tovey said in an episode of the Soccerbeat podcast.
“And that has grown hugely, but at the end of the day, you are going to need football players that play the game and you need the product on the field.
“I think they’ve let themselves down a bit in that regard. They haven’t had the caliber of players that maybe the likes of Sundowns have bought,” he said.
Tovey said most of the current crop of Chiefs players don’t have to understand the club they are representing.
“And then again, there’s that hunger to put the jersey over the shoulders and not just think Chiefs is any small fry or just another club,” Tovey said.
“I don’t think a lot of those players know the enormity of the club and the history of the club. And what past greats have gone through the club and have donned that jersey with extreme pride.
“I think there’s an element of that lacking.”
