No talks with Sundowns: Benni says meeting with Berg purely by chance

Benni McCarthy says the meeting with Mamelodi Sundowns technical director Flemming Berg occurred by chance when the two were passing through an airport in London and the subject of the Mamelodi Sundowns coaching job was never broached.

Reporting in September was Berg met McCarthy, who lives in Scotland, in London to sound out the former Cape Town City and AmaZulu head coach and Manchester United forwards coach for the head coaching job at Sundowns.

This despite the Brazilians having a head coach appointed from the 2024-2025 preseason in Manqoba Mngqithi.

McCarthy denied any such offer was made by Sundowns or Berg.

“I have not spoken to Sundowns. There have been rumours, but the rumours were there when Chiefs had no coach, saying, ‘Benni’ is coming to Chiefs',” Bafana Bafana’s 47-year-old all-time leading scorer said.

“You know, rumours are rumours — don’t listen to the rumours. But no, I have not spoken to Sundowns. There has been no dialogue between me and them. So that’s the first thing out of the way.

“They’ve got coaches there with experience, so we have to give those coaches the respect they deserve.

“Stop putting them under pressure unnecessarily by creating me going anywhere, because those coaches have to do their job.

“They are top coaches, good coaches, people I respect a lot. So I want them to work peacefully.

“They are not just doing it for their football club, they are doing it for South Africa because we want to prove to the world African football is on the up, but South Africa has one of the best leagues. We can get close to some of the European leagues.

“So don’t step on anyone’s toes. There’s not me going to Sundowns — it’s absolutely false.”

McCarthy said the meeting was by chance with Berg, a former worldwide scout for Chelsea, at an airport in London — presumably Heathrow or Gatwick — and might have been the source of reporting he had been offered the Sundowns job.

“It could have been. How? Because here, I don’t know if you bump into someone and the likelihood … I was travelling for my coaching badges, so had to go to Wales. So I go via London and we met at the airport.

“It was just a normal chat. It wasn’t about, ‘Sundowns have an opening’ — nothing. That was nowhere near, nor did I get any feeling that [there was any more to it].

“He [Berg] was telling me about my time when I played at Porto and he was working at Chelsea and was living in Portugal so he came to watch [me] and we met each other a few times [then].

“But I was younger then and I didn’t remember. So just talking, just general and about South African football and that was it.

“Based on that, yeah, I can see why people would put one and one together and come up with two, but it wasn’t like that.

“They [Sundowns] seem happy with the coaches they have and so they should — they are top of the league again for the seventh [eighth] year in a row.”

Asked for clarity if McCarthy was saying the meeting with Berg was by chance and not arranged, the former striker replied: “No, it was just, you bump into someone at the airport.

“So it was not even a meeting. It was just, you travel to somewhere and you see someone in an airport and you’re like, ‘Hey, how’s it going? Blah, blah, blah.’

“That was the chat. He was like, ‘Ah, I remember you from when you played at Porto’, and I don’t even think we mentioned Sundowns once.

“That’s how I know there was no interest from his side or Sundowns’ side because when you chat and don’t even talk about what’s happening at your club, [that happens] because there’s no interest — they’ve got the coaches they have, so happy days for them.”

McCarthy confirmed he has had interest from several clubs in the US’s Major League Soccer.