WATCH | Hunt on Nurković: ‘When I got to Kaizer Chiefs he wanted out’

Former Kaizer Chiefs coach Gavin Hunt has confirmed speculation that striker Samir Nurković “wanted out” of Kaizer Chiefs at the start of last season.

Hunt spent a storied year at Chiefs where a season-long Fifa transfer ban hindered the respected coach in his first big move to a big three club and Amakhosi ended eighth in the DStv Premiership.

Chiefs opted not to renew the four-time league winner's contract and indications are the relationship had soured beyond the team's struggles on the field.

Nurković ended the 2019-2020 season — where Amakhosi confounded expectations ending as runners-up under Ernst Middendorp — among a group of five players on 13 goals, three behind top scorers Gabadinho Mhango and Peter Shalulile.

He spent much of Hunt's season at Chiefs in 2020-2021 injured and the Serb's troubles with fitness have continued into 2021-2022 under Stuart Baxter.

Hunt said the transfer ban made it hard for Chiefs to sell Nurković, who had two years left on his contract then. The striker's deal at Chiefs ends in June.

“When I got to Chiefs [in 2020] he wanted out, and there was an opportunity for Chiefs to sell him,” Hunt told internet football channel Front Runner.

“The problem was the ban. So if we sold him for good money we couldn't replace him.

“So I understood where the club and where Bobby [Motaung, Chiefs' football manager] came from to say, 'What do we get? We can't buy another player because we've got the Fifa ban'.

“And I said, 'Well, he's no good to us now because he's not playing and he's not going to play for six months'. And he never played.

“And to be fair, I thought he would come back earlier, but be that as it may, he still had a hump on his back about not being sold.

“So you had a player who was injured, unhappy and he never got the money for it. Now his value [has dropped].

“But he's free now anyway. Obviously they want to look at him in their last seven, eight games [of 2021-2022], [though] I think a decision should have been made a long time ago.

“But, he's had a lot of clubs already in his career, so maybe he looks like a sort of one-season, two-season type of player and then you've got to move him on.”

Hunt was asked if he would have sold Nurković if the decision was his.

“Well, if we could have replaced him. And to be fair, what was going to happen was we were going to get Bradley Grobler last year [at the end of 2020-2021]. So he was going to go and Bradley would have come in.

“Bradley would have been a local [player] and when I had the talk with Kaizer [Motaung, Chiefs' owner] and Bobby and everyone, that was the talk.

“But [during the ban] they said, 'If you sell him we can't replace him'; [and on the other side], 'But he's not going to play'.

“And I said, 'Well, I don't know. That I can't know. That's another situation'.

“But he was unhappy about not being let go. And he came in, in the second half of the season, and he played a few games here and there, but he certainly wasn't right.

“And now he's missed the first half of the season again and I don't know what the injury was.

“With these types of things you're never right and never wrong. And any club, and even the best managers in the world, make mistakes — when to sell [and when not to].”