Exclusive: Baxter hits back over youngsters

Former Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter has told SABC Sport that his premature exit at Naturena was influenced by politics behind the scenes.

Amakhosi and Baxter™s reunion ended much earlier than his first spell, which spanned three seasons, as the two parties cut ties in April - ten months into his two-year contract. 

Chiefs did not elaborate on the reasons for the decision taken but Baxter says certain œagendas led to his departure. 

"I didn't really need a lot of time for reflection, Mazola. I think it was pretty clear to me what was going on. After I had Covid around the mid-season break, I realised even before then that there were agendas within the club," Baxter told SABC Sport.

"Those agendas were going to be satisfied whether I liked it or not, there were going to be things going on in the background, possibly not what I thought was the correct decision but it was going to be done.

"Now, I read in the papers immediately that I had been sacked, which was not the case. Did I think I should have been given more time? I just realised that the agendas weren't open, saying, 'Listen, coach...' It was in the background all the time."

However, in a recent interview with the Sunday Times, the publication quoted chairman Kaizer Motaung saying Baxter had to go because of his reluctance to use young players, and because his relationship with the fans was expected to further deteriorate.

Baxter refutes this and also opens up on his relationship with sporting director Kaizer Motaung Jnr, with whom he constantly butted heads over which way the club was going following their respective appointments. 

"We did talk about some of the players that would come in, we did speak about the young players. I read an article where the chairman said, 'Stuart didn't play the young players and it was in his contract.' It wasn't in my contract, certainly," he insisted.

"What was clear was that Kaizer Chiefs didn't want to be a team that were doing what they're doing now - buying six or seven players every year because that's the opposite of producing your own players.

"So, what we wanted to do was produce our own players and then buy one or two special players, with special requirements and skillsets that would embellish the team. Now, I don't think that was ever mentioned [to the public].

"I told everybody at regular meetings why I was being patient with some of the younger players but partly because I thought the older players - the Keagan Dolly's and Khama Billiat's - were ahead of them in the pecking order, but we would work actively to give [the youngsters] minutes and get them in to gradually replace [the older players] in a couple of seasons.

"Everybody was ok with that, on the surface. Obviously not now, because the chairman finds it relevant to go out and accuse me of not wanting to play the kids, which is not true.

"[With Kaizer Jnr] we butted heads very early, and I think he realised that if I was around then all these things he wanted to do were not going to be smooth, I wouldn't want to bring in a player I didn't need.

"We discussed the way forward for the club, new targets, who should stay and who should go, we didn't agree on a lot of those things and I think, without saying it, it was just becoming a mission for him to try to make the changes he needed to proceed with his program."

By Mazola Molefe