Abdeslam Ouaddou casts doubt on Orlando Pirates future

The Moroccan tactician guided The Buccaneers to their first league title in 14 years after beating Orbit College 2-0 at Mbombela Stadium on Saturday.  

It had been a gruelling season for Pirates in their umpteenth attempt at ending Mamelodi Sundowns' dominance of eight consecutive league titles, but after telling SABC Sport he is "tired" and unsure of his future on live TV, Ouaddou echoed his sentiments in the post-match press conference.

"For now I cannot answer your question. My only wish is now to rest and to be with my family – who are here and I thank them for supporting me in the job, and to think about the future, this is the most important thing for me," said Ouaddou.

"Because you cannot lie to people, this job is very difficult and you need all this capacity and psychology and motivation to lead such a project.

"And I have to sit, think and speak with my fantastic and honest management people who have been fantastic in supporting me this season, so I need to speak to them.

"Again, I repeat, it's not about a contract or money, it's about energy – you need energy to lead this project, and there are a lot of expectations from the fans,

"I speak now because I'm tired, it has been 10 months of working and I need energy, so I'm not able to talk to you about the future now at the moment."

The former Moroccan international captain also seemed to be taking strain from the unfair social media comments towards him.

"We just won the [league] title, we just won the treble – I'm a passionate man and I'm working with love in that job," he added.

"I've had the chance to play for 17 years in the highest level so you can imagine I'm not chasing a contract or money, I'm doing this out of passion, especially wanting to do it on my continent Africa.

"But, again, you need energy, you need power and you need motivation to do this job because, to lead Pirates is not easy, it consists of millions of people, and if you add social media – I sometimes call it the popular quote.

"You're being judged by millions of people, maybe they don't see what you are doing in the week, they don't even know exactly the purpose and amount of your work.

"But sometimes people are easy to judge and social media becomes a popular cult, and for that you need energy to accept that."