BY MICHAEL KARIATI
FORMER Dynamos and Warriors coach Kalisto Pasuwa has reportedly turned down an offer to join Kenya’s top club, AFC Leopards, preferring instead to stay at Big Bullets in Malawi.
The club — which is based in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi — wanted Pasuwa to help them stop the dominance of bitter rivals Go Mahia, who have taken over the footballing limelight in the East African country.
Ingwe, as AFC Leopards are known, have lost their way in Kenyan football and finished a distant seventh in the 2018 season and have already lost out 1- 0 at home to their bitter rivals Go Mahia in the 2019/20 season.
However, Leopards’ bid to lure Pasuwa to help them stop their pedestal fall has failed with the Kenyan agent, who was handling the matter confirming the deal was now off.
“We are now looking at other options. Callisto Pasuwa declined the AFC Leopards offer,” said the agent who represents the Kenyan club.
Apart from snubbing AFC Leopards, word has it that Pasuwa has also turned down a number of offers including a return to Dynamos.
However, Pasuwa’s manager, Gibson Mahachi, said he was not approached by Leopards, adding that if there was anything between the two, this could have been done without his knowledge.
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Mahachi is based in Zimbabwe, while Pasuwa is in Malawi.
If the deal had succeeded, Pasuwa could have become the second coach after Zdravko Logarusic to handle both the Warriors and the popular Kenyan club. Logarusic was coach of AFC Leopards in 2015 after having also coached neighbours Go Mahia between 2012 and 2013.
Coincidentally, FC Platinum coach Henrik Pieter De Jong also coached AFC Leopards in 2014, a year after Logarusic had left the Kenyan club.
Marabhundu’s star has risen since the day he took charge of Dynamos in 2010, leading the popular Harare club to four consecutive Castle Lager Premier Soccer League titles from 2011 to 2014.
That success earned him a job with the Zimbabwe national team — the Warriors — in which he did not disappoint, qualifying Zimbabwe to the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations finals in 2017.
Upon return from the Nations Cup finals in Gabon, Marabhundu left the Warriors for the Big Bullets job and has led the Malawian club to two successive league championships in the two years he has been in control of the club.
