Kaizer Motaung Jnr, sporting director at Kaizer Chiefs, has admitted that the strategies the club have used over the last seven trophyless years are clearly not working, but he is excited by the new plans that are taking effect at the club.

In July last year the Soweto giants announced that former player and son of the owner Motaung Jnr was named in the administrative role , with his appointment coincided with the return of Stuart Baxter, ironically the last coach to win Kaizer Chiefs silverware in 2015, as well as that of Molefi Ntseki as the head of technical and youth academy.

Speaking at the launch of the club’s new sleeve sponsorship with Toyota, Motaung Jnr admitted that he was excited by the plans the club has and has pointed at the clubs youth academy as a big focus.

“For me, assuming the role of a sporting director is very exciting because it is at the core of building long term sustainable plans for the organisation. There’s different touch points on my side that are not just focused on the football side of the business,” said the former striker.

“What’s important is that it’s given me the last couple of months to do a proper assessment, you are inheriting a squad, seven years of certain strategies that clearly aren’t working and it’s about being true and honest to the process and saying, “what are the ways to bring proper change”. I know we look at things season to season, but if we are honest with ourselves, looked at the past and seen what hasn’t worked…there’s a whole new direction that we have to take.”

“It’s been very exciting, a lot of plans that people are only going to see flowing through the next couple of years because there’s long, short and medium term. With us at the moment we have to find that proper balance and we have to succeed now. There’s a lot of hard work being put in, but more work is need, I think, from my side,” he said.

“If you want to look at the models that really work in football, often times people look at the commercial muscle and buying power. But the plans and strategy that are working at the clubs, you have to look at the youth set up. Head of technical obviously would have responsibilities around driving the philosophy elements in the first team, but it is very important to have a link.”

“Even though we had our youth set up merging with the first team set up, that link was very important and with that comes a lot of responsibility. Mr. Ntseki has taken up that role with existing staff members, there’s massive plans as to how we can evolve that and change it,” explained Motaung Jnr.