Former Sheikh Russell KC coach AKM Maruful Haque said it was unexpected from his part to get sacked from the club halfway through the league. Maruf, who guided Russell to a treble last season, added despite the relation not been a good one between him and the club this season, the club should have fulfilled their commitment and let him stay with the team for the AFC President’s Cup.
As a result he has now been denied his maiden international exposure as a coach which not only demoralised him, but spilled water on his preparations for the event.
“Yes, it hurt me,” Maruf said yesterday. “I started to prepare the team for the President’s Cup, I rarely conduct video sessions but I started video sessions by collecting videos of the three opponents, I was charged up for my first international exposure but unfortunately it is not happening.”
Maruf blasted the club officials for their non-professional and ridiculous approach. The club served him a show-cause letter that he received on April 9 and he answered it within half an hour. He said, “They served me a show-cause letter for the failure in the Independence Cup football, the subject was why I chose Jamaican Ricardo Cousins and Uruguayan Francisco Usucar for the penalty shootout against Feni Soccer, they said both the players missed penalties in the practice, it is a laughing stock as both the players missed penalties in a certain day, they scored in the next day.
“I answered that the players missed the penalties in the shootout due to my fault and it’s my responsibility, so the club decided to sack me, if the coach can be show caused for the failure of the players in penalties, I thought there are no need to continue the job,” said Maruf.
He was not bothered over the salary irregularities, but the club’s mismanagement led him to insecurity from the beginning of the season.
“At the start of the season they said the deal will be worth Tk2.3m, later I sacrificed 0.3m for assistant coach Zulfiqar Mahmud Mintu, so the deal came to Tk2m and they paid me 1.5m as the salary of seven and half months. When I asked about the remaining money they said to leave it out, I said ok, I don’t need the money,” said Maruf.
It was the club’s Serbian player Savanovic who informed Maruf that a Serbian coach has arrived for the club. “I enjoyed 100 percent freedom over my job last season, from the beginning of current season it was not like that, moreover this year the team was not a formidable one, only one national player Mithun was in the fold, there were no quality forwards, the standards of the foreign players were not up to the mark to meet Russell’s expectation” said Maruf.
He regretted not leaving the club when better opportunity knocked his doors and said, “I had some offers even from Kolkata Mohammedan, but I thought twice, I am a job holder of BUET also so I can afford may things and look forward positively.”