The Chippa United Coaching Change signals a hard reset in Gqeberha. Bottom-placed Chippa United have parted ways with Belgian coach Luc Eymael and turned back to Vusumuzi Kanu Vilakazi in a bid to steady a turbulent season.
What might read like another entry in a season-long log of upheaval carries more weight when you look at the timing and tone. The club confirmed a mutual separation with Eymael, then immediately ushered Vilakazi back into the hot seat, a move framed around familiarity with the badge and a promise to rally the Chilli Boys faithful.
What the club said
The announcement arrived with a clear message of gratitude, renewal and resolve. In an official statement issued by Sporting Director Sinesipho Mali, Chippa acknowledged Eymael’s professionalism and positioned Vilakazi as a leader who understands the club’s identity.
Chippa United FC confirms a mutual separation with Head Coach Luc Eymael. We thank him for his professionalism and wish him all the best in his future endeavours. We are pleased to welcome back Kanu Vilakazi as the new Head Coach. Familiar with our Club’s values and ambitions, he is well-placed to lead us forward in the Betway Premiership League. To our loyal supporters — thank you for your belief and encouragement. We promise to bounce back stronger as the Chilli Boys.
The club reiterated that message on its social platforms, underlining continuity and connection with supporters as central pillars for the next phase. It is a call for calm in a season that has been anything but quiet.
Eymael in numbers
Eymael’s tenure was brief and bruising. The journeyman coach won one of seven matches in charge, balanced by two draws and four defeats, a return that left little margin for patience given the league position.
Chippa lost 2-1 away to Marumo Gallants on Sunday, then entered midweek at the foot of the Betway Premiership table. The Gqeberha side has six points after ten games, a figure that speaks to the urgency of the decision and the narrow runway available for a turnaround.
A season of revolving doors
Vilakazi becomes the club’s fifth coach of the campaign. Chippa started with Sinethemba Badela, then turned to caretaker stints before appointing Eymael, a cycle that has kept players and supporters braced for change rather than stability.
The rapid cycling of technical leadership has become the defining subplot of this Chippa season. It is a story written in hurried handovers and new instructions, and it has left the club seeking a steadier voice to guide the final two thirds of their league journey.
Who is Vilakazi
Vusumuzi Kanu Vilakazi enters with a profile that blends familiarity and experience. He is 43, and he has already worked within Chippa’s structures, including a brief spell as technical director and assistant coach in September 2023.
Beyond Gqeberha, Vilakazi was jointly in charge of Lamontville Golden Arrows alongside Mabhuti Khenyeza, before a spell at Richards Bay. Last season he served as co-coach at AmaZulu with Arthur Zwane, a tenure that ended when he resigned midway through the campaign.
That résumé matters because this job is about more than drills and touchline decisions. It is also about walking into a dressing room that has heard multiple voices since August, then making those voices feel like one again.
What changes now for Chippa
Every coaching change carries its own logic. Here, the message is about values, ambition and a manager who does not need a map to find his way around the corridors of the club. It is also about the scoreboard, which demands immediate improvement in a league that punishes slow starts.
- Chippa sit at the bottom of the Betway Premiership with six points after ten games,
- the squad has already adjusted to a fifth coach in the same season,
- a returning head coach arrives with familiarity and a mandate to steady results.
In practice, that means finding quick cohesion and a reliable structure, then protecting leads and points in tight matches. It also means leaning into the connection with supporters that the club referenced, turning belief into noise, and noise into energy on the pitch.
The wider league picture
Managerial changes often ripple across the division. According to the latest reporting, Kaizer Chiefs are the only other club to make a change in the dugout this season, with the departure of Nasreddine Nabi. That context underscores how dramatic Chippa’s in-season turnover has been, and how unusual it is relative to their peers.
Stability is not a silver bullet, but in a league of fine margins, it often helps. Chippa’s hope is that Vilakazi’s return supplies just enough calm to let performance breathe.
Why the timing matters
The decision followed a narrow defeat at Marumo Gallants, the kind that stings because the result was within reach. When a team is anchored to the bottom, every point has double weight, and that reality can accelerate boardroom choices.
There is also a human layer that runs through this story. Eymael’s exit arrives with the club’s thanks, and that matters because the job is relentless and public, and because the next person in inherits not just a position but the emotional load of a season’s struggle.
A blueprint for the coming weeks
No coach enters a fifth-in-season handover in search of grand projects. The assignment is clarity, repeatability and points, usually in that order. With Vilakazi, Chippa have opted for someone who already knows the culture and who, per the club’s own words, aligns with its ambitions.
Expect that to shape his early calls. Familiarity can shorten the onboarding curve, reduce friction in training ground routines, and simplify communication in the stands and on the pitch, which is precisely what a team in Chippa’s position needs.
Supporters at the center
One line in Mali’s statement jumps off the page, the message to supporters who have kept turning up and tuning in. The club promised to bounce back stronger as the Chilli Boys, a phrase that places fans at the heart of the mission and asks them to keep the faith.
It also reflects how the story of a relegation fight is never just tactical. It is about patience, about belief, and about the simple joy of seeing a team find itself again after a tough run.
What this move says about Chippa
By choosing Vilakazi now, the club has placed a bet on continuity of identity. He is not an outsider who needs a crash course in context, he is a coach who has recently been inside the building and who has ticked boxes elsewhere in the Betway Premiership.
In football, there are times to rip up the plan and start over, and there are times to reconnect with what you already are. Chippa’s decision reads like the latter, an attempt to unify a fractured season rather than rewrite it entirely.
Final word
Chippa’s coaching carousel has spun faster than anyone would prefer, and the table position is an unflinching mirror. Yet within the churn there is now a clear thread, a returning head coach who understands the badge and a club that has publicly asked supporters to walk with them.
That is the promise of this appointment. If Vilakazi can convert familiarity into focus, and focus into points, then the Chilli Boys can indeed make good on the vow to bounce back stronger, and turn a turbulent start into a season worth remembering for the right reasons.
