The 37-year-old will have a say on who becomes the club’s Sporting Director
Rhulani Mokwena has an opportunity to select a Sporting Director of his choice at Wydad Athletic Club.
Mokwena joined Wydad as their new coach this month and is still putting together his backroom staff, having lured his former Mamaleodi Sundowns colleague Sinethemba Badela. He has now confirmed that he has been given powers to decide whom he will work with as Sporting Director.
The position is critical to the coach as the holder will be the man tasked with recruitment and Mokwena feels they need to work in harmony to avoid the turf wars he experienced at Sundowns with Sporting Director Flemming Berg.
Mokwena to interview Wydad’s next sporting director
“You know what’s also very interesting? The president showed me they were in negotiations with three technical directors, not sporting directors and he showed me the messages, (saying) ‘sorry guys, you will have to be interviewed by the new coach, the coach must approve,’” Mokwena told Game On on Radio2000.
“It’s crazy, I don’t have a sporting director, I don’t have a technical director but whatever if we do get one, it will be because we sat down and I interviewed him. That responsibility has been given to us to be able to choose.”
Mokwena then seemed to aim a thinly veiled dig at his former club where Berg wielded a lot of power that led to a falling out which eventually forced him out.
‘Sporting director works very closely in parallel with the coach’
“(Roberto) De Zerbi did it at Olympique Marseille and worldwide, the truth of the matter is that worldwide, the sporting director works very closely in parallel with the coach or works under the coach. Sporting director is never about the coach,” he added.
Mokwena and Wydad president Hicham Ait Menna have got off to a good start with the latter giving him power to make decisions in key areas and he will have to get it right.
The 37-year-old has little time to find a suitable sporting director since Wydad are expected to be busy in the transfer market after the tactician revealed that the club has lost up to nine players.
