Belgian coach Ivan Minnaert knew all too well that Vipers’ revolving door was one he could hardly survive for long when he was unveiled at St Mary’s Stadium, Kitende, in July last year.
Yet he boldly vowed to sail against the tide and prove his worth. Reality, however, finally caught up with him on Sunday when the Uganda Premier League champions confirmed the end of his uneasy marriage with the club.
To lose a league-winning coach just days after being crowned champions is hardly new at Lawrence Mulindwa’s Vipers.
Success alone has rarely guaranteed job security at Kitende. For Minnaert, the writing had long been on the wall that he was destined for the axe, come what may.
Warning bells
In truth, many observers were surprised he survived beyond August 2025 after Vipers crashed out of the Caf Champions League at the first hurdle.
The Venoms suffered a damaging 2-1 home defeat to Zambia’s Power Dynamos before settling for a 1-1 draw away, bowing out 3-2 on aggregate. For a club owner obsessed with continental relevance, it was a disastrous start.
Even as Vipers marched relentlessly towards an eighth league title, insiders continued to point out glaring cracks in Minnaert’s tactical armour.
Calls for his dismissal reached a crescendo in April despite the club still chasing a domestic double.
The pressure only intensified after eventual champions Kitara eliminated Vipers in the Uganda Cup semi-finals on the away-goals rule following a goalless draw in Hoima and a 1-1 stalemate at Kitende.
Many within the club viewed the tie as a textbook example of poor game management.
The statistics, admittedly, paint a flattering picture. Minnaert leaves with 40 matches in charge, winning 25, drawing 13 and losing only twice.
One defeat came through a boardroom ruling after Vipers refused to honour a league fixture against Kitara during the controversial league-format dispute. His only on-field defeat was the loss to Power Dynamos.
When stats lie
Yet numbers alone never told the full story. Whenever assistant coach John ‘Ayala’ Luyinda was given the freedom to patrol the touchline, Vipers often looked more coherent and purposeful.
It was Luyinda, alongside Fred Muhumuza, who had engineered a league and cup double the previous season before being demoted to accommodate Minnaert’s arrival.
Sad end
Minnaert himself appeared to acknowledge the strained relationship in his farewell message.
“Football teaches many lessons. One of them is that respect is easier to talk about than to practise,” he wrote.
“This season we became champions. We remained unbeaten in the league. We lost only one game all season. Apparently football is not always decided on the pitch. Fortunately values don’t depend on circumstances. I leave this chapter with my head held high,” read part of Minnaert’s farewell message.
It was a familiar ending for a coach whose African journey has taken him through Liberia, Libya, Mali, Kenya, Rwanda, Guinea and South Africa, often with similarly abrupt conclusions.
Lofty ambitions
At the recent Vipers AGM, Mulindwa unveiled a lofty Shs6.5 billion budget and reiterated his desire to transform the club into a continental force while “beefing up the squad to compete domestically and on the continent.”
It sounded like a thinly veiled dismissal of ordinary achievement. One thing is certain. Before August, another expatriate coach will walk through the St Mary’s Stadium doors to tackle one of Ugandan football’s hottest and most precarious jobs.
And just like Miguel Da Costa and Roberto Oliveira aka Robertinho before him, Minnaert’s achievement of delivering Vipers’ eighth league diadem may soon be forgotten.