Friday, August 11, 2017
Persiba Report 'Missing' Coach To Police
Last week Persib came out and announced they would be appointing Milomir Seslija as their new coach and he would start working on the fifth of August. Milomir came out and said that no he would not be joining the West Java club, he was under contract with Persiba and of course the club was quick to issue denials forcing Persib to backtrack. He even took to Twitter and said any stories linking him with Persib were just rumours.
Earlier this week Milomir announced he would in fact be quitting Persiba after all and promptly left. Many put two and two together and concluded the Bosnian coach would indeed be taking over Persib. His decision to quit though seems to have caught his current employers by surprise and they came out and said they weren't sure why Milo wanted out and they refused to accept his resignation saying his was under contract till the end of the season.
At first glance it seemed a rare scenario where a coach was spurning the offer of a big club and showing loyalty to his club and their fans. Persiba have struggled all season and despite a recent uptick in form, one defeat in their last five games, they are still second bottom of Liga 1 and are 14 points from safety. Despite the low ranking the fans and the club seemed happy to stick with Milo as I witnessed when I saw the Honey Bears play PSM last month, ending with a point when their efforts deserved all three.
However Milo's abrupt resignation and departure from Balikpapan seems to have ended the mutual love in. The football club have reported him missing to the police and have also written to the PSSI saying as far as they are concerned Milo is still under contract with them and no other club should seek to appoint him.
Well, I have found the coach. It wasn't hard! Less than an hour ago a picture was posted on an instagram linked to the coach showing him relaxing on a beach in Bali!
Persiba have been busy during the transfer window, releasing some players and adding new signings including Srdan Lopicic and Sunarto from Arema, both influential in their win over Perseru last time out. Now this sorry saga could have a negative impact on the team's efforts as they try to escape the releagtion zone. Things have obviously come to a pretty pass when a club reports its coach as a missing person; there is a lot more to this story that remains untold but for me it's just a shame that the partnership between Persiba and Milo has come to an end like this.
# posted by Me @ 5:22 PM 
