HARARE – Former Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns star Teko Modise has launched an extraordinary attack on former Zimbabwe coach Ian Gorowa, blaming him for Sundowns’ failure to win the league title in 2015.

In his revealing new book, The Curse of Teko Modise, the poster boy for South African football at his peak suggests Gorowa tinkered with team selection to fix some players – to his own detriment.

Gorowa was in 2016 handed a 10-year ban by the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) for alleged match-fixing. Gorowa last year completed his theological studies with the Johannesburg-based Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) bible college.

Bafana Bafana legend Modise had no kind words for Gorowa in his book ghost-written by Johannesburg- based sports journalist Nikolaos Kirkinis.

Said Modise: “Sundowns had four games remaining in the season. They needed six points to secure the league title, so all they needed to do was win two games, or at the very least draw three and win one.

“A Zimbabwean named Ian Gorowa was coaching Sundowns at the time. He had been a talented footballer in his day, but later would be handed a 10-year ban by the football association in Zimbabwe for his role in a match-fixing scandal in his home country.

“However, at this point in our story, Gorowa was just a coach – a very good coach – but something odd started happening towards the end of the season when the trophy looked to be in the bag.

“With four games to go in the season, all against smaller teams, Gorowa started changing things unnecessarily. He was placing players out of position, putting strikers on the wing and defenders in the midfield. Some even joked that he would have put Teko as a goalkeeper and himself in the number-10 position if he had it all his way.”

The 2010 World Cup final squad member for the South African team said Gorowa did not want to win the championship that year.

Says the book: “Gorowa seemed hellbent on proving a point rather than winning the league. It sometimes seems as if the most important thing for a coach is to constantly prove that he is the big man at the head of the table. This was an especially difficult task at Mamelodi Sundowns where all the players were extremely well-paid celebrities in South Africa.

“Gorowa began benching many players, as if to show them who was boss, and Teko was not immune to his behaviour.”

Modise thought Gorowa had an inferiority complex towards him because of his undoubted big status in South African football circles.

“Gorowa was particularly wary of Teko. When Teko arrived at the club, many had already formed an opinion about him, opinions based on a set of assumptions that were built on rumours.

“In his mission to prove a point, Gorowa even went as far as playing certain players he knew had gone out drinking the night before, just so he could watch them suffer in the heat the next day and so that he could show them who was boss.

“Gorowa had his theories on how to deal with Teko. For example, he would not play Teko in a cup game against Orlando Pirates because he thought there would be too much trouble due to the history between them.”