Ingwe appoint U-19 deputy coach

AFC Leopards have appointed Alain Mushegera from the Democratic Republic of Congo as the new assistant coach of their U-19 Kenya Premier League (KPL) team co-chairman Dan Mule confirmed on Thursday.

At the same time, the team has confirmed their SportPesa Premier League clash Chemelil Sugar on Sunday will now be played at Nairobi’s Nyayo National Stadium.

”Already we have one professional FIFA coach in charge of goal keeping who was also a coach of one of the local premier leagues club in South Africa and we have appointed him as the assistant coach of the team,” Mule told Citizen.

AFC are set to name their squad for the KPL U-19 immediately they appoint the head coach on Monday with three candidates in the frame for the job.

Mushegera is a FIFA licensed coach who has worked at Congolese giants, TP Mazembe’s reserve team as well as Tonnerre, Yaoundé and Sable Batie football clubs among others.

“We have gone through his curriculum vitae found him vital to be employed as an assistant coach,” Mule stated adding, “We insist on taking a local head coach since he is familiar with our youth.”

-Chemelil at Nyayo-

On the Chemelil match, the co-chair declared, “The game has been taken back to Nyayo as earlier planned. We have spoken with KPL and they have reversed the decision to take it to Kasarani. I urge fans to turn up in their numbers to support the team on Sunday and it will only be one game, there is no double header.”

In crying foul over the decision to switch the clash against the ninth placed side to Kasarani, Leopards expressed concern on sharing gate collections and what they termed as insufficient notice from the league management body.

“They wanted the game to be aired live but we saw as a club there has to be prior planning. If they told us earlier, we would have made arrangement and playing in the double header would have denied us revenue.

“As a club, we want to manage our own games and make our own arrangements,” Mule maintained.

The club is set to recruit a total of 40 players from all over the country and from performing schools.

The U-19 KPL team are among the beneficiaries of the club’s SportPesa sponsorship. They will be given 3 million every year.

Report by Mercy Rop and Jacob Icia