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Minnaert to Leopards: Stop treating me like a dog


Former AFC Leopards coach Ivan Minnaert has accused the club officials of unleashing hooligans to throw him out of his apartment in Nairobi.

Speaking to Nairobi News exclusively via his spokesperson on Sunday, the Belgian trainer said the club was “treating him like a dog and yet he is a human being”.

Minnaert also compared the club’s chairman Dan Mule to an “ostrich which buries its head in sand and does nothing” despite promising much.

Minnaert is at loggerheads with the Kenyan Premier League club following his unceremonious dismissal in August.

The club fired him “following a spate of poor results that led to concerns from the fans.”

The coach and his former employer have since disagreed on his severance terms.

DISMISSED ILLEGALLY

The club has offered to pay him an equivalent of his two months salary totaling Sh 800,000 in lieu of notice, but the former Rayon Sports coach wants a complete payout of his remaining 18 months worth Sh7.2 million.

“Look, they sent people to my apartment to kick me out yesterday (on Saturday) and yet I am staying there with my family. AFC Leopards officials need to know that I am not a dog and so before we get to an agreement, I am not leaving that place. I thank the Football Kenya Federation CEO for coming in to salvage the situation for the time being,” Minnaert said.

The coach added: “The club thinks that because I am a foreigner if they kick me out I will become desperate and ask for anything and leave. They are mistaken. I was dismissed illegally and will prove that. My case is before the federation already and we could even head to the Sports Tribunal.”

Minnaert’s situation is just but the latest in a string of fallouts between Leopards and its former coaches. Pieter de Jongh, James Nandwa, Tom Olaba and Zdravko Logarusic are the other coaches that have fallen out with the club in the past one year.