TP Mazembe President Moïse Katumbi has described as miraculous former football star Rainford Kalaba’s sharp recovery from a tragic road accident which happened in near Lusaka last week.
Kalaba was admitted into Lusaka’s University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Intensive Car Unit after he was involved in a fatal car accident which claimed the life of one near the Zambian capital on Friday, 13th April, 2024.
Katumbi made the trip into the neighbouring country and visited Kalaba whose health condition continues to greatly improve after regaining consciousness last week.
Speaking to the reporters after visiting Kalaba at UTH in Lusaka, Katumbi thanked the government, hospital staff and the Zambian community for the rendered to the former football star through out his mischance.
“I am so happy and I just want to first say thank you to God because this is a miracle from God for [Rainford] Kalaba to survive and I am also saying thank you to the government of Zambia, the doctors, nurses and to everyone even the journalists, even the Zambian people because they prayed for Kalaba” Katumbi said.
“Kalaba is alive, he is fit and he can even come back to play his role in football again.”
Katumbi praised the efforts of the medical staff at the UTH for ensuring Kalaba was resuscitated even after he widely reported to have lost his life in the accident.
“It is a very good hospital because what I have seen today is different from what I saw when they declared on social media that Kalaba had died or almost dead,
“I was not in Lusaka when I received pictures of the car that Kalaba was in which were so bad and that is why I say we really have to thank God, if God was not there and if God didn’t help Kalaba, he was to be gone already and I think the hospital have done a wonderful job” he said.
Meanwhile, Katumbi also clarified that Kalaba was still working with Mazembe as a youth coach and had been attending courses to obtain his coaching license in Lusaka before the accident.
“Kalaba didn’t retire from football, he is still working with the coaches at Mazembe, we have Kalaba, Trésor Mputu, Robert Kidiaba and Pamphile Mihayo, I always keep all of my players and at least they are now training the young players and giving advice,
“Kalaba was in Lusaka because I want him to become a coach because he is a very good boy, very clever and he can read the game of football very well,
“Maybe people are forgetting Kalaba, they should go back and see what he did when he was playing for Mazembe and even when Zambia won for the first time the Africa Cup, with Kalaba and [Stophila] Sunzu.”
Kalaba spent majority of his career with the Lubumbashi giants whom he joined 2011 until his retirement from active football last year.
