Former Sandawana coach and Spaniard Antonio Jesus Flores
Mikia Kalati
FORMER premier league champions Lioli’s newly elected committee has swiftly moved to appoint former Sandawana coach, Antonio Jesus Flores as the club’s technical director.
Tse Nala president, Lebohang Thotanyana confirmed the latest developments, telling the Lesotho Times on Tuesday that the Teyateyaneng outfit was on a mission to reclaim the league title they surrendered to bitter rivals Bantu last season.
“In reinforcing our technical team, we have brought in Mr Flores who previously worked at Sandawana and he is our technical director,” the Thotanyana said, adding, “He is highly qualified and I believe that he can help us”.
Apart from Sandawana, the Spaniard has also worked in east Africa at Ugandan side SC Villa.
Thotanyana also said they would reinforce the squad with new signings in order to mount a challenge for league and cup honours.
“We will obviously reinforce the team based on the wish-list given to us by the technical team to ensure that we compete better in the new season.
“We want to challenge for the league title again and that is our number one goal.”
He said even last season the mandate for the technical team was to win at least two trophies including the league title.
“Our mandate for the technical team was to win two trophies including the league title and although we didn’t win the league, we are still happy with the other trophies we won.
“It was bound to happen that at some point we would lose the league title although I still feel that we gave it away.”
Thotanyana said he wanted to step down at the club’s Annual General Meeting on Saturday but he was given a fresh mandate to continue at the helm.
“I was re-elected as club president although I was ready to step down because I feel I have been in the position for a long time.
“I was ready to hand over the reins but the club decided otherwise and right away we want come up with working strategy for the team as the new committee.”
He also said they would revive their gala dinner and new committee members were expected to help with fresh ideas.
“The plan is for the dinner to be held in September.
“We hope the new committee will bring new ideas. We lost some members from the previous committee and that had made it very difficult to function properly,” Thotanyana said.
