RAHMAN Gumbo is now weighing his options and could be going back to club football following his resignation from the Warriors.
REPORT BY TAWANDA TAFIRENYIKA SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
Gumbo resigned from his job as coach of the Warriors yesterday morning — just hours before a Zifa board meeting, which had not been concluded at the time of going to print.
Gumbo could, however, not state reasons which led him to take the decision.
“I have resigned from my job as coach of the Warriors,” he said. “I have sent my resignation letter to Zifa. That is all I can say.”
His resignation came a week after a Zifa high-performance technical committee had recommended the appointment of a foreign coach after it carried out an in-depth analysis of the report on the doomed 2013 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) campaign submitted to them by Gumbo at the request of Zifa.
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A local mining company is understood to have been sounded on the idea of hiring a foreign coach and is said to be prepared to bankroll the coach’s salary once the recommendations of the technical committee are approved by Zifa.
The foreign coach should be in place at least by the New Year to prepare a new team — from the ashes of the disbanded team — for the Fifa international friendly dates for January. Gumbo took over as coach of the Warriors in March this year for the remaining 2013 and 2014 qualifiers following the suspension of Norman Mapeza for his alleged involvement in the Asiagate match-fixing scandal.
He had signed a two-year contract with his brief being to lead Zimbabwe to the 2013 Afcon and also to guide the team to the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.
Gumbo, who won league titles with Malawi’s Telecom Wanderers and Township Rollers of Botswana after having lifted the Premiership crown with Highlanders twice, however, failed to lead the Warriors to next year’s finals.
The Warriors bombed out of the continental soccer qualifiers at the last hurdle following a 0-2 defeat to Angola having gone into the match carrying a healthy 3-1 lead from the first leg in Harare.
That painful defeat was met with a chorus of disapproval from football stakeholders and with the Zifa leadership having resolved to disband the Warriors leaving the technical team, it raised a lot of questions.
Gumbo was in his second spell as Warriors coach having taken over from Sunday Chidzambwa in 2004 before he was sacked the same year following a 3-0 loss to the Super Eagles of Nigeria.