BESIEGED Rayon Sports head coach Jean Marie Ntagwabira has refused to get drawn into the club’s recent off field troubles, but promises that his scheduled press conference on Thursday will be a showdown.
BESIEGED Rayon Sports head coach Jean Marie Ntagwabira has refused to get drawn into the club’s recent off field troubles, but promises that his scheduled press conference on Thursday will be a showdown.Last week marked yet another low point in Rayon’s seemingly unending management problems when some senior players signed a petition letter to remove the coach. After a 3-1 defeat by APR FC in the first leg of the MTN Peace Cup, a section of Rayon fans manifested their rage toward Ntagwabira accusing him of being the military side protégé. But Ntagwabira doesn’t want to comment on the matter, at least for now."I know you (press) all want to ask me about all those off field problems, but I’m not going to give answers today. I am sorry about that, but after the MTN Peace Cup final, I will be ready to answer all your questions,” stated Ntagwabira in a post-match press conference after 1-0 loss in hands of APR in the second leg of the Peace Cup semifinal."I will tell you the truth you probably didn’t know since my first day at Rayon Sport. You will have the opportunity to ask me any kind of question you want. "But for now, allow me to prepare the match for the third place against AS Kigali without controversies,” added Ntagwabira, who is expected to discover his fate after the match.Even though Ntagwabira shows no desire to talk about those problems, he gave hints on what to expect in the Thursday press conference."After the loss in the first leg of the MTN Peace Cup, I still ranked highly our chances to get to the final. But we didn’t have any training sessions after that match to prepare for the second leg. "To win, you must prepare your team, and we simply didn’t do that,” said Ntagwabira assessing the reasons why his team was not able to get back into the match.Meanwhile, APR FC coach Ernie Brandts believes his team deserved to get to the final after two convincing displays in semifinal against their sworn enemies."Even if we missed four big players for [this match] I must congratulate my team because in two games, I think we deserved to win. We were well organised all through; we didn’t allow them many chances. I think they got one during the game,” said the Dutchman, who will face Police in the final on Wednesday.Rayon will have to wait another year and organise their house before dreaming of representing the country in the continental club competitions. One of the several off field scenes that have jeopardized Rayon’s season have been the delay in players’ monthly salary payments on more than one occasion which caused the coach to field a weakened team due to the refusal of some players to play without getting paid.