BG correspondent

FOOTBALL
Atop four finish has not been good enough to excite Lobatse outfit Extension Gunners to quickly renew coach Daniel ‘Chico’ Nare’s contract. The contract ends this month. Gunners finished fourth in the highly competitive beMOBILE league for the 2009/10 following many seasons in which the team barely survived relegation.
Nare was the only Motswana coach nominated for the Coach of the Year award during the premier league awards this year. He lost to Zimbabwean coach Rahman Gumbo who won the league championship with Township Rollers. Speaking to BG Sports this week, Nare revealed that his contract with the Lobatse outfit was ending on July 31 this year. However, he lamented that Gunners management had asked him to apply for the job, something which he refused to do. “I won’t apply for the job,” Nare stressed. The talented coach said Gunners came to him for his services and did not go through the formal procedures of applying for a job when he joined the team. “The contract is not mine to extend,” he argued. Quizzed if he was interested in coaching Gunners again, Nare said that he was happy to coach anywhere. Despite his differences with the team, he revealed that he was happy with the support that Gunners had given him during his three years with the team. He further revealed that he had been talking to a lot of teams, which he could not reveal.
But even this week, with management having dilly-dallied all along, he maintained that he would still give Gunners first priority if he agreed with their terms. An uncompromising Nare said that he was waiting for a call from the Gunners chairman Keorapetse Kgasa to chart the way forward.
The past season saw Nare’s popularity soar at a time when local coaches were fairing badly in the premier league. He unleashed the potential in players like Maano Ditshupo, Emmanuel Nlu and the seasoned striker Bernard Simakwenzi. When reached for comment, Kgasa said that the team management was still in negotiations with the prolific coach.
However, Kgasa would not be drawn into discussing the team’s current relationship with Nare. “His contract ends this month,” Kgasa said. According to Kgasa, the Peleng side will be having their Annual General Meeting this weekend in Lobatse and their future plans will be revealed afterwards. Kgasa further said that he could not reveal new players and those being offloaded until the AGM.