June 17 – With football in Somalia returning rapidly after years of violent conflict in the country, and the federation only recently having been given control back of its national Stadium Mogadishu after the departure, it seems that not all is easy going in the new reality.
The Somali Football Federation (SFF) has fired its national team coach Abdellatif Salef, a Belgium national of Moroccan origin, after just three weeks in the job saying that he was “incompetent” and “undisciplined” and didn’t possess the professionalism that a national team coach should have.
“He continuously used abusive words against the players, he maltreated them since taking charge of the team and he doesn’t have good behaviour,” said an SFF statement.
“The players were unhappy with his training sessions, as his skills and experience are not those of national team standards, while he didn’t even come up with a training plan.” The statements said adding that the coach failed to ‘co-operate’ with either his technical team or the players.
The sacking was made several hours before Somalia was due to encounter Djibouti in a friendly match on Tuesday evening.The match ended a 0-0 draw.
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