BLACK Africa coach Ali Akan says he will submit his resignation letter to the club management today.
‘I have stopped coaching Black Africa and will submit my resignation letter tomorrow (today),’ the Turkish-born coach told The Namibian Sport.Akan said he stopped going to the training field after his last match in which they drew 2-all against Blue Waters, and has no intentions to go back.’I am not going back to training. I stopped coaching. I am finished with BA and I will give them my letter tomorrow,’ he said.Asked why he was leaving, Akan said the decision was based on personal reasons and he did not want to make any further comments about his resignation in the media.Meanwhile, BA’s executive chairman and owner, Ranga Haikali, told The Namibian Sport that Akan had simply gone AWOL.’He has gone AWOL because he has not reported for work for the past two weeks and we don’t know what his intentions are. Me and the chairman (Boni Paulino) held a meeting with him earlier where he cited personal problems as a reason to leave the club. He did not say what the real reasons were, but we decided to wait for his resignation letter which up to now has not reached us,’ he said.Haikali, who took over the club this season, said it was unfortunate that Akan had to resign from the team in the middle of a league campaign.He said they temporarily charged assistant coach Dirkie Beukes with the coaching responsibilities and he is helped by former player Lolo Goraseb.BA meet Sport Klub Windhoek (SKW) in a premiership tie tonight at the Sam Nujoma Stadium and Akan will not be there.SUCCESSFUL COACH Akan is among Namibia’s most successful coaches, with three league titles with three different teams.Akan landed his first title in 1999 with Black Africa, before clinching it with Blue Waters in 2000, while his last was with Civics in 2005.For the current league campaign, Akan has been in charge of Black Africa in 20 matches of which he has only lost one, with five draws, since he took over in March this year.Akan took over from Ronnie Kanalelo in the second stanza of last season and brought the team into the top-six bracket of the log, while it currently enjoys the third spot in the league with 18 points from nine encounters.So far this season, Akan has only dropped one match – a 1-0 loss to Tigers on October 9 in Windhoek.From late last week, former Nigerian national team coach Clemence Westerhof has been attending the training sessions of the club and is poised to be hired as a consultant to improve the standard of the club, according to Haikali.Haikali said the move to bring in Westerhof should not have threatened Akan in any way as he was still the head coach and would remain as such.’Westerhof is here to put structures in place in view of improving the standard of professionalism in Black Africa. If resources allow, we will also look at using his knowledge on making the same contribution at the premiership level as well as at Soccer House,’ he said.Haikali, an entrepreneur whose business interests lies in mining, manufacturing, aviation, petroleum, IT services as well as the tourism and hospitality industries, says he is looking at the bigger picture for local football.’We want to use Westerhof as a consultant to broaden the current scope of Namibian football with his professional experience. We want teams to be on par competitively for better quality in the long run,’ he said. corry@namibian.com.na
