Wullems fired after Champions Cup debacle

MAKASSAR, South Sulawesi (JP): PSM Makassar officially fired technical coach Henk Wullems of the Netherlands following the team's humiliating defeats in the quarterfinals of soccer's Asian Champions Cup East Asia zone last week.

"PSM officially fired Wullems on Tuesday. We considered him unable to help PSM improve its results. We were humiliated before the home crowd, losing by large margins," PSM manager Kadir Halid said on Wednesday.

Kadir said the decision to dismiss Wullems was made during an internal meeting of the club's management. The main reason for the dismissal was Wullems' failure to help PSM achieve better results at the quarterfinals of the Cup, held from March 21 to March 25.

Wullems, who led Indonesia to second place at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in 1997, was recruited by PSM patron Nurdin Halid in the middle of last season. He was signed to a contract that paid him a monthly salary of US$10,000, and was assisted by Syamsuddin Umar in preparing PSM for last week's event.

"We hired him to train PSM players for the Asian Champions Cup. When he failed, the management was very disappointed," Kadir said.

Wullems did help PSM win last season's national league.

PSM management was shocked by the team's poor performance at the Cup. The team lost to Shandong Luneng of China 3-1, was humiliated by Samsung Suwon Blue Wings of South Korea 8-1 and was blanked by eventual zone winner Jubilo Iwata of Japan 3-0.

Kadir said local soccer fans were also shocked and humiliated by the results.

Nurdin, who is Kadir's older brother, had hinted in the final postmatch media conference on Sunday at the possibility of dismissing Wullems.

"PSM's quality is below that of the three visiting teams. But losing 8-1 was really painful. We will evaluate the team's performance, including the players but especially the coaches," he said.

Another factor behind Wullems' dismissal was that many players were uncomfortable with his training methods.

"Many players complained about his training methods. I am afraid that if we retained him, he would hurt the team's performance in the Bank Mandiri league," Nurdin said.

Kadir said Wullems had received an official dismissal letter and appeared to accept the decision.

He also said PSM would concentrate on retaining its title in the national league. (27)