Ferreira hopes to help promote new club
Johnny Ferreira feels the new Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila owners have given him a second strike at fulfilling his dream of helping a team move from the GladAfrica Championship to the more lucrative Absa Premiership.
Johnny Ferreira, new head coach of Sekhukhune FC (Ryan Wilkisky/BackpagePix)
The new owners will change the club’s name to Sekhukhune FC as from next season after buying Tshakhuma’s Championship status. Tshakhuma have in turn bought Bidvest Wits’ Premiership status.
Ferreira has been hired as a coach with immediate effect and will first finish the current season with Tshakhuma should the Premier Soccer League decide to finish the games which were stopped due to the outbreak of Covid-19 in March.
Ferreira was unceremoniously removed at Uthongathi FC where he was looking to help the Durban-based side to the big league. When asked if he will be looking to take Tshakhuma to the play-offs, Ferreira said: “Absolutely. My chairman is a businessman and he has looked at those opportunities.
“That is a consideration for us that if we can get Tshakhuma to the playoffs anything can happen. Anyone can win the play-offs; it doesn’t matter who finishes in 15th position from the top-flight.
“It is clearly an objective of the club. They want promotion as quickly as possible but within reason. They are not unreasonable about it. They made that clear to me. They felt I was most suited than most coaches for this project of taking the club to the premiership and it is a privilege for me to be associated with Sekhukhune FC.”
Ferreira will meet up with his team for the first time next week, depending on the PSL’s decision about finishing or abandoning the league. If the PSL take Safa’s suggestion of an August 1 restart, it will leave Ferreira with little time to get his team ready, but he is up for the task.
“The training period is not ideal, because if the PSL decides on August 1 restart, we will not have enough time to prepare. But the fact that Tshakhuma are lying fourth, two points behind Uthongathi with a remarkably similar goal difference is enough ammunition for me to work with.
“We will try to get to the third position, if we get second that will be a bonus. I think Ajax are a bit out of our reach now as they are 10 points ahead which means for us to catch up they’d have to lose two games and we have to win three… that might be a little unreasonable. But the second position is within our reach. We will go it a full go,” said Ferreira.
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