AmaZulu boss jumps to Benni McCarthy’s defence after touchline outburst

AmaZulu FC boss Sandile Zungu has jumped to the defence of coach Benni McCarthy after his outburst in Tuesday’s DStv Premiership match against SuperSport United.

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Benni McCarthy and his Matsatsantsa counterpart Kaitano Tembo were seen involved in a heated exchange during the match – which ended 0-0.

Both sides had a player red-carded.

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In an interview with Kickoff, Zunga blamed “terrible refereeing” as one of the reasons for his side’s early season struggles and said he can understand why McCarthy has been ‘agitated’ on the field.

“AmaZulu has been the victim of terrible refereeing lately,” Zungu said.

“Particularly in our CAF Champions League match against the Malawian team. It was so terrible, zero out 10 kind of refereeing. While it’s not the first time.

“So you can understand why the coach feels agitated because he puts so much effort into preparing the team to compete.

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“I think that he’s got no control over how referees officiate and he’s human as well so he gets agitated.

“I’m in full support of him. We’ve always known that he does get animated, and we’ve got no problem with that whatsoever.

“If the officials feel his actions are worthy of yellow cards and red cards they will take action at the time. But we are not dealing with yellow cards or red cards for Benni McCarthy. So it’s all in the game.

“But we are deeply concerned with the quality of refereeing. We’ve been the victim of bad refereeing decisions. I saw that game as unfortunately I was not at the Stadium but I was watching it on TV. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with what Benni did.”

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AmaZulu have made a shaky start to the 2021/22 season.

They lost 2-1 to Cape Town City FC in the first round of the MTN8 and were then defeated 1-0 in their opening DStv Premiership match of the season by reigning champions Mamelodi Sundowns.

They held Swallows to a goalless draw at home in their second DStv Premiership clash, but followed that up with 1-0 loss to Malawi’s Nyasa Big Bullets FC in their first preliminary round first-leg CAF Champions League tie.

The 0-0 result against SuperSport United not only highlighted AmaZulu’s struggles in front of goal this season (one goal in five matches) but saw the KwaZulu-Natal side remain a lowly 15th in the DStv Premiership standings as one of just three sides without a victory to date.

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Zungu added that he expects the PSL may charge Benni McCarthy for his actions – but questioned the validity of such a decision.

“Why would they charge him? What I know is that the game we played against Nyasa Big Bullets was terrible. Benni was much closer to the situation yesterday, I was not at the Stadium. But what I saw on TV Benni had some justification for being animated.

“So as far as AmaZulu are concerned, we had a string of misfortunes, and things that are under our control we will correct. But things that are out of our control we will express alarm such as poor refereeing,” Zungu concluded.

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AmaZulu will next be in action in the second-leg CAF Champions League tie in Malawi against Big Bullets on Saturday, 18 September.

Kick-off is at 16:00 SA time.

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