By Kalumiana Kalumiana
Football executive and ex-FAZ treasurer Kelvin Mutafu believes Football House should have resolved all their differences behind closed doors with Zambia women’s national team coach Nora Hauptle and then issued a substantive statement on the way forward instead of the back-and-forth drama of he-said-she-said between the two parties that is playing out in an official manner in public.
On Wednesday, FAZ spokesperson Nkweto Tembwe revealed during a media briefing that Hauptle has proposed that her 3-year contract be revised to part-time and on half pay so that she can get a day job elsewhere.
Hauptle, who was hired in January 2025, also proposed that she be freed from her technical advisory role in the women’s junior structures.
In addition to that, the Swiss-born coach is demanding through a petition filed at FIFA bonuses from future competitions to be paid forward as compensation for lost income.
In an interview with Revelation Sports yesterday, Mutafu said the entire episode between employee and employer cannot be played out in the middle of a big international assignment involving the women’s national team.
Zambia are in South America taking part in a FIFA Series women’s friendly tournament in Cuiabá where they have suffered heavy 4-0 and 6-1 losses to Canada and hosts Brazil, respectively, and now face South Korea in their final game tomorrow in Cuiabá.
“You know, the way I look at it myself, much in this country is very unusual to unlock in a contract which was sealed and signed. Yes, but in a situation like such, if a sitting coach he or she is offering to release the contract, you can weigh the permutations. If that particular coach’s performance is above average, then you can sit down with her to see how best such a contract can be unveiled and also can be revisited to suit her demands, if those demands are attainable to avoid a vacuum on the bench, like what we have experienced,” Mutafu said.
“I am surprised that she had offered to release her contract, but first FAZ didn’t state in their briefing whether they sat with her, they agreed to disagree, or whatever was discussed. They just kept quiet to experience a vacuum on such high-profile friendlies.
Hauptle has been conspicuously missing from all three Zambia international match assignments since successfully guiding her team to 2026 WAFCON qualification in October 2025.
Her assistant Charles Haalubono is currently in charge in Brazil and was also at the helm during the 2026 COSAFA Women’s Cup in February in South Africa and a Malawi three-nation friendly tournament in late November 2025.
But Hauptle made a brief appearance during Zambia’s pre-2026 WAFCON camp in February before the Morocco tournament was rescheduled from March to July this year.
FAZ gave a vague statement over her absence, citing pending assignments back in Europe.
“Those friendlies don’t come by accident. They have known way back that such a window will have these friendlies. So first they were supposed to have sat with Nora, agreed to disagree, or agreed to agree, so that there is no vacuum on the bench,”Mutafu said.
“If they disagreed, they would have quickly found somebody to replace her. What we expected from them when they do the press conference, we’re supposed to tell her, no, she has requested you for this, but they don’t tell us that we disagreed or we agreed. They just told us this person requested for this, this person for that; all those things are supposed to be done in the background. So if they have a press conference, don’t say no coach Nora made this request. We had a meeting with her, and we agreed to her terms, and now we have relieved her from duties for ABCD. She’s going to concentrate on ABCD. Or, we didn’t agree with her terms, and we said, ‘Okay, that’s been the case, I think we are cancelling the contract, and that’s the reason why we are now bringing so-and-so to be the acting coach. Those are the things in which a football fraternity would need to listen.”
Mutafu said FAZ must learn from the way they are handling the Hauptle issue and, in the future, give stakeholders and the nation a firm statement in the interest of public confidence in the institution.
“This is not the way management handles such things, and you go to the public and you tell them this. Quietly, we had a meeting with her, we agree on those things. If they don’t agree, they would have just said, okay, there were some demands which the coach wanted, and so on. Unfortunately, I think we couldn’t agree, so we have decided to go on a mutual separation. In the meantime, we have put this person in charge to avoid the vacuum on the bench, like what has happened,” Mutafu said.
Mutafu added that Hauptle’s demand for compensation from FIFA is very unusual.
“How do you even bring those openly? Because those were supposed to also have been discussed on the table with her. Then she’s told that this has never happened. The contract doesn’t even state that there’s a provision to repay the bonuses before you even kick the ball,” concluded Mutafu.
