'I regard myself as a brand': Malesela confirms co-coaching role led to Royal AM exit

Newly-appointed Marumo Gallants FC head coach Dan Malesela has confirmed the reason he left Royal Am recently was down to his dissatisfaction with the co-coaching role at the club.

In July, Malesela joined Royal AM as a co-coach alongside Khabo Zondo, who was demoted as head coach, and Abram Nteo to run the ambitious KwaZulu-Natal outfit, like is being done successfully at Mamelodi Sundowns using a co-coaching system.

On Tuesday, four months since departing as coach, Marumo Gallants confirmed the return of Malesela as a replacement for Frenchman Romain Folz.

In an interview with KickOff, coach Malesela explained the reason for leaving Royal AM recently.

"It was just due to my role because I just felt the co-coaching role was not working," Malesela said.

"I asked myself if I regard myself as a brand, as Dan Malesela, how is my brand going to be affected when I'm among a group and whether I am growing that brand. Because in my opinion, I haven't really fulfilled completeness in this thing of coaching.

"Because I still need to do a lot more, grow a lot more," he said.

"But then who will be able to identify if I'm the one who is steering this whole thing when we are a group.

"So, I felt maybe it's not going to work for me."

Malesela, who reportedly worked without a contract at Royal AM, clarified the situation with regards his "non-contract", and said: "No, no, no the contract was there, it's just that I didn't have time to sign it because when the president is here, I'm not around, when she is around, I'm not here.

"Another thing we were staying at a farm, and at the farm to do things electronically it's very difficult because most of the time we struggled with the network," Malesela added.