Moorosi Tsiane
JUST a year after his departure, Bob Mafoso could be headed back to the Mafeteng outfit to replace James Madidilane who resigned last week, the Lesotho Times can reveal.
Madidilane is also rumoured to be on his way to South Africa where is likely to take up a head-coach post at an Eastern Cape outfit which plays in the ABC Motsepe League.
According to a source close to the deal, the Bantu management has already met multiple times with Mafoso to lure him to the former league champions where he worked as assistant to Madidilane for two year.
The duo won back to back league titles in the 2016-17 and 2017-18. They also bagged an Independence Top4 trophy in the 2017-18 season.
“Bantu have met several times with Mafoso and from what I have heard, they have agreed on terms and he will be signing a two-year contract soon,” a source said.
Contacted for comment last night Mafoso refuted the claims and said he remained Kick4Life coach.
“I have never met with Bantu officials discussing a contract. I am still Kick4Life coach,” Mafoso said.
He however, said he would not rule out a return to his former paymasters.
“Anything can happen in football so I can’t say I will never go back to Bantu because it can happen although I do not think that could happen now. Now I have a contract with Kick4Life that I must honour,” Mafoso said.
Kick4Life director of football Chris Bullock also said he was not aware of the issue.
“I don’t know about that because he still has a running contract with us and if Bantu wants him, they have to talk to us first and they haven’t said anything to us,” Bullock said.
Bullock said they also need Mafoso’s services since they have a long-term project with him.
“We want to keep him because we have a long-term project which we are building with him, so we have got no interest in letting him go,” Bullock said.
On his part Bantu president Leuta Leuta also professed ignorance of the matter but said he would meet the technical department that is responsible for finding a new coach today.
“What I know is that there have been applications from different coaches which come from as far as Spain. I am told there have been eight nominations and tomorrow (today) we will meet our technical department to get the updates.
“I know nothing but tomorrow we have a meeting where our technical department will give us a list of the shortlisted coaches. We will decide based on what the technical department would have recommended,” Leuta said.
