Kaizer Chiefs coach Cedric Kaze denies the club is playing games with Luke Baartman’s career

Cedric Kaze has dismissed assertions that he is wasting Luke Baartman’s career by allowing him to play for the Kaizer Chiefs reserve team.

Baartman joined Chiefs in the off-season alongside team-mate Asanele Velebayi amid legal wrangles with former club Cape Town Spurs.

Until the legal proceedings were finished, both players had not donned the black and gold for Amakhosi.

Having being cleared by arbitration, Baartman and Velebayi faces fresh challenges of fitness though Velebayi has made matchday squads bar Baartman.

It does look like fitness concerns are hampering his potential Chiefs debut. This made coach Kaze suggest he go gain minutes in the club’s DDC side.

But this has been met with a lot of resistance with many suggesting Chiefs are delaying the player’s progress as he should play for the first team straightaway.

“People think we are trimming back a player like Baartman,” Kaze told the media.

“I want just to clarify that it’s a player that was bought to be part of Kaizer Chiefs first team squad.”

With such intimate knowledge from the coach, it does not look like Baartman will be handed his Chiefs debut anytime soon.

“I don’t know but it’s how football works,” he said.

“If a player is a little bit late on the physical condition even on the tactical and technical conditions in every team in the world, the weekend he plays with the reserve then he comes back to the first team then he can play three days after with the first team, but it doesn’t mean that you are downgraded him to the DDC team.”