Chiefs notes 'ongoing discussions' with Nabi amid speculation of his axing

Kaizer Chiefs have confirmed coach Nasreddine Nabi is not currently with the team in Angola ahead of their CAF Confederation Cup preliminary round match against Kabuscorp on Sunday.

Reports emerged this week that Chiefs and Nabi had parted ways in the aftermath of Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to Sekhukhune United in the Betway Premiership. However, that result, which was their first defeat of the season was not the reason behind the end of the relationship between the Tunisian coach and the club.

In a statement released on social media on Friday morning, Chiefs revealed that Nabi had not travelled with the players to Luanda but stopped short of confirming his departure from the Soweto giants.

The statement went on to say “discussions between the club and the coach remain ongoing. The matter is internal in nature and is being addressed through the appropriate processes”.

Nabi joined Amakhosi in July 2024 on an initial two-year deal. He came highly rated after winning two league titles with Tanzanian club Young Africans Sc, commonly known as Yanga, while also finishing as the runners up in the 2022/23 edition of the CAF Confed Cup.

In the following season, he took AS FAR Rabat to 2nd place in Morocco’s Botola Pro League, behind Raja Casablanca, before taking charge of Chiefs.

The relationship between Chiefs, the club’s fans and Nabi hasn’t always been a happy one. After 2 wins in his first two games, the cracks started to appear following consecutive losses to Mamelodi Sundowns and SuperSport United.

And while Nabi was able to end Chiefs’ decade long trophy-drought by winning the Nedbank Cup in May, rumours of his departure started during a run of nine winless matches in the Betway Premiership as they missed out on a top 8 finish in his debut season.

The Glamour Boys made their best start to a league campaign in a decade this season as they won four of their first five matches this season before the loss to Sekhukhune.

All four of those wins came while Nabi was away as he had to travel back home to Tunisia to attend to a personal matter and his assistants Khalil Ben Youssef and Cedric Kaze took charge of the eam.

Chiefs said they won’t make any further comment on the matter at this time.