When Christos Kousidis was announced as the new Hibernians coach, many would have thought it was a strong push for the title from the Paolite club after the FIBA-Licensed Greek coach had taken Athleta to the playoffs last season. However, after just a month into the collaboration, both parties parted ways in a shocking turn of events.

Hibs issued a statement on Saturday, saying that they had decided to dismiss Kousidis “due to differing views on the direction and management of the Men’s Senior Team”. 

While they thanked Kousidis for his efforts, they stressed that the clash of ideas would not work saying that “it would have been unfair on the players if this was done later on in the season”.

At the other end of the story, Kousidis believes he was left in the dark about these views and that while he acknowledged the fact that his bias was solely towards the success of the men’s senior team and not the entire club, he told Malta Basketball it was an issue best settled with discussion rather than simply dismissal.

In an email seen by Malta Basketball, Kousidis had highlighted a list of player-related requirements he wanted the club to meet to push for a title race which included the addition of three import players subject to the club’s budget, two or three specific local players (or local foreigners), and the opportunity to choose youth players for promotion to the senior team while shifting some of the non-performing players to the clubs’ Division Two side. 

Kousidis remarked that all of his requests were accepted by the club after their first meeting. 

While Matthew Gouder, one of the players requested by Kousidis, went on to sign with the club later in July, the Greek said he never managed to have a discussion with the Hibernians committee about the rest of his requests, saying the club changed their idea about things and went as far as to avoid him after he admitted with the Hibs’ head of operations Mario Tabone that he felt he didn’t have the trust he needed, simply asking him for time to discuss internally before they eventually handed him a letter of dismissal on Friday.

“Regrettably, your attitude towards the setup of our technical board has been very unprofessional, even bordering on arrogant. It has always been our club’s policy not to interfere with our coaches’ decisions, but likewise we do not accept our coaches interfering with the running of the club as this is beyond their competence,” the letter read. 

Opportunity to discuss

Kousidis lamented the fact that he had only made a gentleman’s agreement to take over the role with the club delaying his contract’s signature and that when he spoke to the players about the issue, the problem escalated. 

“They told me it would be better the end our collaboration because of my communication with the players – I asked the players and they all said everything was fine and that they wanted me to stay on as coach,” he said.

He admitted that being in the dark about the club’s overall goals meant he may have been too biased towards his senior men’s team and said he apologised if that may have been arrogant, however, he believes that given an opportunity to discuss the issue, both parties would have ironed it out.

“If they would have told me what had to change, I would have adapted. Telling me we have an agreement on something and then coming up with an alternative because of club decisions is something that happens – they could have set up a meeting and told me ‘Christos, you cannot bring A, you have B to work with – if you like it, ok, if not, you can leave’. But at least, we should have discussed.”

Ultimately, Kousidis said he had joined the Hibs project as he felt they wanted to change things for the better, now questioning the reasoning behind them hiring him in the first place.

“I had an offer in Austria to be an assistant coach in the First Division and I regret that I rejected that to stay here and lost that position. Now I need to wait for an opening which could be in December – it is disrespectful.”

“If (Hibs) don’t want to change things, why hire me? If they want me to bring them two Americans and just play ‘coach’, it doesn’t work like that – I want to build a good team with eight to 10 players that can compete. When a player is afraid of competing for his minutes, he will never work hard. But this is my mentality.”