Black Leopards is happy to announced the appointment of Ian Palmer as the new Head coach for the remainder of the current season, he will be replacing the Zimbabwean Sunday Chidzambga who will move to the Technical Director Position and Abel Makhubele will remain assistant coach.

The move was prompted by the much publicised Asiagate match fixing and bribery scandal in which Sunday Chidzambga was implicated and subsequently banned by the Zimbabwean football association.

“We would like to give Chidzambga an opportunity to deal properly with these issues; we stand by him 100% until proven otherwise. After having observed the situation we feel that he will be cleared of any wrong doing, however like any other human being we feel that the current situation will affect his performance as a head coach at Black Leopards. Unfortunately the business has to go on; hence we have moved him to a less demanding and less stressful position.” Thidiela, the chairman of Black Leopards explained the reasons of the changes.

“It has always been our agreement with Chidzambga that after 3 seasons he will be technical director and the coaches will report and be appointed by him, it is just unfortunate that it happened pre-maturely as it was only supposed to happen at the end of the current season. We value Sunday very highly as he has fulfilled his main mandate at Black Leopards by bringing the team back to the PSL, hence last season when he resigned we did not accept his resignation and opted to keep him in a different position. He later returned to the coaching position and led the team through a good run in the CAF CONFED Cup and saved the team from relegation. Sunday will always be part of Black Leopards to enjoy the fruits of his hard labour.” Thidiela further explained

Palmer is expected to start at the Limpopo side with immediate effect. Leopards are facing Platinum Stars next Wednesday at Peter Mokaba Stadium; they are currently lying 11^th on the ABSA premiership log with 9 points from 8 outings with 1 win, 1 loss and 6 draws.