Cédric Kaze is a Burundian football coach whose career has crossed national-team development, club management and elite academy work on three continents. Born in Bujumbura in 1980, he first built his reputation with Atlético Olympic before coaching Mukura Victory Sports, Young Africans and Namungo.
He later joined Nasreddine Nabi’s staff at Kaizer Chiefs, helped the club end a decade-long trophy drought and shared senior-team leadership after Nabi’s departure. Kaze became Sekhukhune United head coach in July 2026, but the club announced his departure by mutual agreement on 1 September. His wider record remains defined by coaching education, youth development and adaptability across Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Canada and South Africa.
Who is Cédric Kaze? Cédric Kaze is a Burundian professional football coach born in Bujumbura on 15 July 1980. He has coached national youth teams and clubs across Africa, worked at an FC Barcelona academy in Canada, won six trophies with Young Africans’ technical team and later helped lead Kaizer Chiefs.
Sekhukhune Exit Ends a Brief Head-Coach Chapter
Kaze’s most recent appointment lasted less than two months. Sekhukhune United named him head coach in July 2026 after his contract at Kaizer Chiefs ended. The Limpopo club presented him as a coach with continental experience, formal qualifications and a record of developing players within different football systems.
On 1 September, Sekhukhune announced that Kaze had left by mutual agreement with immediate effect. The club promoted Papi Zothwane to head coach and retained other members of the technical structure. XTRAfrica’s report on Kaze’s Sekhukhune departure records the official wording and the immediate handover.
Some headlines described Kaze as fired or axed. That language goes beyond the club’s statement, which said the separation was mutual and did not publish a detailed reason. The sporting context was difficult: Sekhukhune had suffered a sequence of defeats and had been eliminated by Orlando Pirates in the MTN8 semi-finals. Results created pressure, but they do not prove any undisclosed dispute or establish a private reason for the decision.
The episode was the shortest senior club chapter of Kaze’s career. It should not be read in isolation from the longer route that took him from Burundi’s domestic league to youth national teams, Rwanda, Tanzania, Canada and two of South Africa’s most prominent clubs.
Early Life in Bujumbura
Cédric Kaze was born on 15 July 1980 in Bujumbura, Burundi. A detailed 2013 profile by Rwanda’s The New Times identified his parents as Deo Bigirimana and Suavis Nshimirimana and described him as the youngest of three children, with two older sisters.
BIOGRAPHY
Cédric Kaze Biography: Career, Trophies and Coaching Journey
Sep 2, 2026
Sep 2, 2026
21 min read
Published
Updated:
Cédric Kaze is a Burundian football coach whose career has crossed national-team development, club management and elite academy work on three continents. Born in Bujumbura in 1980, he first built his reputation with Atlético Olympic before coaching Mukura Victory Sports, Young Africans and Namungo.
He later joined Nasreddine Nabi’s staff at Kaizer Chiefs, helped the club end a decade-long trophy drought and shared senior-team leadership after Nabi’s departure. Kaze became Sekhukhune United head coach in July 2026, but the club announced his departure by mutual agreement on 1 September. His wider record remains defined by coaching education, youth development and adaptability across Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Canada and South Africa.
Who is Cédric Kaze? Cédric Kaze is a Burundian professional football coach born in Bujumbura on 15 July 1980. He has coached national youth teams and clubs across Africa, worked at an FC Barcelona academy in Canada, won six trophies with Young Africans’ technical team and later helped lead Kaizer Chiefs.
Sekhukhune Exit Ends a Brief Head-Coach Chapter
Kaze’s most recent appointment lasted less than two months. Sekhukhune United named him head coach in July 2026 after his contract at Kaizer Chiefs ended. The Limpopo club presented him as a coach with continental experience, formal qualifications and a record of developing players within different football systems.
On 1 September, Sekhukhune announced that Kaze had left by mutual agreement with immediate effect. The club promoted Papi Zothwane to head coach and retained other members of the technical structure. XTRAfrica’s report on Kaze’s Sekhukhune departure records the official wording and the immediate handover.
Some headlines described Kaze as fired or axed. That language goes beyond the club’s statement, which said the separation was mutual and did not publish a detailed reason. The sporting context was difficult: Sekhukhune had suffered a sequence of defeats and had been eliminated by Orlando Pirates in the MTN8 semi-finals. Results created pressure, but they do not prove any undisclosed dispute or establish a private reason for the decision.
The episode was the shortest senior club chapter of Kaze’s career. It should not be read in isolation from the longer route that took him from Burundi’s domestic league to youth national teams, Rwanda, Tanzania, Canada and two of South Africa’s most prominent clubs.
Early Life in Bujumbura
Cédric Kaze was born on 15 July 1980 in Bujumbura, Burundi. A detailed 2013 profile by Rwanda’s The New Times identified his parents as Deo Bigirimana and Suavis Nshimirimana and described him as the youngest of three children, with two older sisters.
Kaze grew up in a country where football offers one of the strongest shared cultural spaces. His early experience came as a player rather than a public figure. A 2012 interview with Radio-Télévision Isanganiro described him as a former Prince Louis player before charting his emergence as a young coach.
There is little reliable public documentation of Kaze’s playing position, senior appearance record or the exact point at which he stopped playing. His reputation was built primarily through coaching. That distinction matters because later profiles sometimes enlarge a modest playing background into a detailed professional career that surviving records do not support.
What is clear is that Kaze moved into coaching early and approached it as a profession requiring study. By his early thirties, he was already balancing club work with responsibilities inside Burundi’s national-team structure. He was also forming ideas about discipline, attacking play and the responsibilities of a team immediately after losing possession.
Education and Coaching Qualifications
Kaze’s academic and coaching education became a central part of his professional identity. Kaizer Chiefs’ official appointment profile says he holds a bachelor’s degree in Sport Science, a CAF A licence and an A licence issued through the German Football Federation.
The combination matters. Sport Science gave him a formal base in performance, conditioning and athlete development, while the licences established his technical preparation for senior coaching. East African coverage also links his German training to the Hennef Sports School, an institution long associated with coach education.
Kaze’s career does not follow the familiar route of a famous international player moving directly into management. He built his standing through qualifications, age-group football, domestic results and work inside technical teams. That route helped him move between roles: head coach, assistant coach, youth coach, national-team assistant and technical contributor.
Kaizer Chiefs also recorded that Kaze was named East and Central Africa’s coach of the year in 2012. The recognition came during the period in which Atlético Olympic was challenging consistently at the top of Burundi’s league and Kaze was expanding his national-team responsibilities.
Atlético Olympic and the First Major Success
Kaze’s first well-documented club success came with Atlético Olympic in Burundi. Isanganiro reported that he had been with the club from the 2009–10 season. Across three campaigns, Atlético finished second, then first, then second again.
The championship season was especially notable. In the 2012 interview, Kaze said the team had completed the previous league campaign without losing a match. That unbeaten title gave substance to his growing reputation and helped earn him a role as an assistant with Burundi’s senior national team.
His comments from that period offer an unusually clear view of his coaching principles before international moves and larger clubs changed his public profile. Isanganiro described a philosophy oriented toward attack, combined with an immediate defensive demand after the ball was lost. Kaze also identified Pep Guardiola as a coaching influence.
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Those ideas were not presented as abstract branding. Kaze connected performance to preparation, discipline and player psychology. When Atlético failed to retain the title, he pointed to a disrupted pre-season, player departures and the emotional effect of a cup elimination. He thanked his players for recovering to finish second while also making clear that the result did not satisfy him.
The same interview showed a coach already thinking beyond one club. Kaze acknowledged contact from teams elsewhere in the region but said he would move only for a worthwhile sporting project. That balance ambition without publicly claiming an unmade deal would appear repeatedly later in his career.
Burundi National-Team Development Work
Kaze’s connection with Burundi’s national teams began before his profile reached the largest clubs in East Africa. Kaizer Chiefs says he started as an assistant with Burundi’s under-17 team in 2007. He later worked as an assistant to the senior side and coached the under-20 and under-23 teams before leaving for Canada in 2015.
The sequence placed him inside several layers of player development. An under-17 coach works with technique and early tactical education. Under-20 and under-23 roles bring selection pressure and the transition toward senior football. Senior-team assistance requires a different kind of preparation, because international windows are short and coaches must communicate ideas quickly.
Kawowo Sports’ profile before his first Young Africans appointment said Kaze had been involved across Burundi’s youth and senior structures in roughly 70 international matches between 2009 and 2015. The number comes from regional reporting rather than a complete match-by-match federation archive, but the broader national-team pathway is also confirmed by Kaizer Chiefs.
In March 2026, Kaze temporarily returned to Burundi’s senior set-up as a technical adviser during an international window while still working at Kaizer Chiefs. The assignment reflected a relationship that had survived his moves abroad. It also showed that his national-team value was connected not only to matchday coaching but to technical planning and support.
Mukura Victory Sports and Rwanda
Kaze moved to Rwanda and became head coach of Mukura Victory Sports. The New Times profiled him in October 2013 as one of the notable young coaches in the Rwandan league. Mukura were based in Huye and had not won the national championship; Kaze spoke about building a side capable of competing with any opponent.
The appointment was an important test. At Atlético Olympic, he had worked with a team that knew his methods and had already competed for honours. Mukura required him to transfer those ideas into a new league and a different club environment.
The 2012–13 Rwandan season had ended with Mukura in fourth place. The challenge was therefore not simply to preserve a champion. It was to move an established club closer to the leading sides while managing expectations around resources, recruitment and consistency.
Kaze’s Rwanda period is also the point at which a precise birth record and early family details entered the public record. Later profiles often recycled those facts without updating them, particularly his relationship status. The biographical information remains useful, but time-sensitive personal details from 2013 cannot safely be treated as a current description.
Canada and the FC Barcelona Academy
Kaze left Burundi’s national-team pathway for Canada in 2015. Kaizer Chiefs says he first worked for a youth football training institution and then spent two and a half years at an FC Barcelona academy.
This part of his career is sometimes exaggerated. He did not coach FC Barcelona’s senior team or work at the club’s first-team complex in Spain. His role was within an academy in Canada operating under Barcelona’s development model. That is still meaningful experience, but the description must remain precise.
Academy work placed Kaze back in player development after years of managing competitive teams. It exposed him to a structured methodology centred on technical confidence, positional understanding, decision-making and age-appropriate training. It also required him to communicate across cultural and language differences in a North American football environment.
The experience fitted ideas he had already expressed in Burundi. His Atlético teams were expected to attack, maintain discipline and react immediately when possession changed. Barcelona’s academy framework offered another vocabulary and training structure for those principles.
Working with young players also strengthened a quality that appeared during Kaze’s later media duties at Kaizer Chiefs. Before the 2025 Nedbank Cup final, he defended younger players against the idea that they were individually responsible for the team’s difficulties. He argued that setbacks belonged to the group and that difficult moments should contribute to a player’s development.
First Spell as Young Africans Head Coach
Young Africans appointed Kaze head coach in October 2020. The Dar es Salaam club had dismissed Zlatko Krmpotić despite an unbeaten start, so Kaze entered a demanding job in which good results alone did not remove pressure.
Kawowo reported that the club’s communications manager confirmed Kaze’s arrival and expected him to take charge against Polisi Tanzania. The move elevated him from regional recognition to one of East Africa’s largest and most intensely followed clubs.
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His first spell ended on 7 March 2021. Tanzania’s The Citizen reported that Young Africans parted company with Kaze and his technical bench after a draw with Polisi Tanzania followed a run of unconvincing performances. A defeat by Coastal Union had also ended the club’s unbeaten league record.
The dismissal was a setback, but it did not end Kaze’s relationship with Yanga. That later return is a significant part of his biography because it shows how football careers can be less linear than a list of appointments suggests. A coach can leave one role under pressure and still return in a different capacity when relationships, expertise and project needs align.
Six Trophies With Nasreddine Nabi’s Yanga Staff
Kaze later worked with Tunisian coach Nasreddine Nabi at Young Africans. In this phase, his value was not measured by the title of head coach alone. He contributed inside a technical team that established Yanga as Tanzania’s dominant club and a continental finalist.
Kaizer Chiefs says Kaze and Nabi won six trophies in two seasons. Their period together included back-to-back league success and a run to the 2023 CAF Confederation Cup final. Yanga beat USM Alger 1–0 in the second leg in Algiers, but the tie ended 2–2 on aggregate and the Algerian club won on away goals. CAF’s official final report described Yanga’s appearance as the club’s first continental final.
The partnership with Nabi became one of the most important professional relationships in Kaze’s career. Nabi trusted his understanding of training, communication and match preparation. Kaze, in turn, gained experience inside a staff managing championship expectations and long continental travel.
Yanga also demonstrated the difference between individual authority and collective coaching. The trophies belonged to the club and its full technical structure, not to one assistant. Kaze’s contribution is best understood as part of a successful staff rather than as a claim that he personally won six titles as the sole decision-maker.
Namungo and Another Head-Coach Test
Kaze returned to a head-coach role with Namungo in 2023. The appointment kept him in Tanzania and gave him responsibility for a club working outside the financial and supporter scale of Young Africans.
His spell ended in October 2023. Mwanaspoti reported that Kaze announced his resignation after a 3–2 defeat by Singida Big Stars. Namungo had gone six league matches without a win, recording three draws and three defeats.
Kaze’s public statement thanked the club’s leadership, technical staff, players and supporters. The resignation showed another side of coaching responsibility. At Young Africans in 2021, the club ended his contract. At Namungo, he said he had chosen to step down after results failed to improve.
Those episodes complicate any simple story of uninterrupted ascent. Kaze’s career contains titles, admired technical work and difficult exits. That is normal in coaching, where the same methods can succeed in one environment and fail to produce results quickly enough in another.
Kaizer Chiefs and a South African Breakthrough
Kaizer Chiefs appointed Kaze as assistant coach on 17 October 2024. He joined Nasreddine Nabi’s technical team after Fernando Da Cruz left, reuniting a coaching partnership that had delivered trophies at Young Africans.
Chiefs introduced Kaze as a qualified, experienced coach who could complement Nabi’s approach. The move brought him into one of African football’s most visible environments. Every selection, result and press conference at Chiefs carries scrutiny, and the club was trying to recover after years without a trophy.
Kaze’s first season ended with the 2025 Nedbank Cup. Before the final against Orlando Pirates, he emphasised efficiency in both penalty areas, emotional control and collective responsibility. Chiefs won 2–1 at Moses Mabhida Stadium. The Nedbank Cup’s official report recorded that the victory ended a ten-year wait for silverware and qualified the club for the CAF Confederation Cup.
The trophy was credited to Nabi’s team, with Kaze working as an assistant. It became a landmark in Kaze’s South African career because his technical contribution formed part of a staff that delivered the club’s long-awaited success.
From Assistant to Shared Senior-Team Leadership
Nabi left Kaizer Chiefs in October 2025. Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef then stepped up to lead the senior team. The arrangement gave Kaze greater responsibility while preserving a collaborative structure.
Kaizer Chiefs’ official departure statement provides the clearest record of their 2025–26 season. The pair led the team in 39 matches across the Betway Premiership, CAF Confederation Cup, Carling Knockout Cup and Nedbank Cup. Chiefs recorded 19 wins, 11 draws and nine defeats.
The club finished with 54 league points, which Chiefs described as its second-best total in 11 years. In the Confederation Cup, the team collected ten group-stage points but missed the knockout phase on goal difference.
Those numbers show meaningful improvement without turning the season into an unqualified triumph. Chiefs were more competitive, but they did not advance from their continental group. The mixed record is useful when assessing Kaze because it demonstrates both leadership capacity and the limits of results inside a shared interim structure.
Kaze and Ben Youssef left in May 2026 when their contracts ended. The club thanked them for their contribution rather than describing the exits as dismissals. Within weeks, Sekhukhune offered Kaze a head-coach role and a chance to lead a South African club in his own name.
Cédric Kaze’s Coaching Style
Kaze’s philosophy is best understood through his own comments and the teams in which he has worked. In 2012, he described an attacking orientation supported by defensive responsibility as soon as possession was lost. He also emphasised discipline and identified Guardiola as an influence.
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At Kaizer Chiefs, his media comments added a focus on balance. Before the Nedbank Cup final, Kaze said the team needed to defend well, score efficiently and prevent emotion from overwhelming the game plan. He recognised the pressure of a derby final but argued that players needed clear heads rather than excessive tension.
His record also suggests comfort in collaborative technical structures. He worked as Nabi’s assistant at Yanga and Chiefs, shared senior-team leadership with Ben Youssef, and returned to Burundi as a technical adviser. These roles require flexibility, because an assistant must strengthen the head coach’s plan without turning every contribution into a competing public identity.
Youth development remains another recurring theme. Kaze coached Burundi age-group teams, spent years in Canadian youth football and worked at a Barcelona academy. His public defence of young Chiefs players fits that background: he treated mistakes as part of development and resisted making inexperienced individuals the sole explanation for collective failure.
No single formation defines his entire career. Clubs, squad quality and the authority of other coaches have varied. It is safer to describe Kaze through consistent principles preparation, structure, attacking intention, reaction after losing the ball and player development than to assign him one permanent tactical shape.
Personal Life, Partner and Children
Kaze has kept most of his private life outside football coverage. The New Times reported in October 2013 that he was not married at that time and had an infant son. More than a decade has passed, so the old marital-status detail cannot establish his current relationship status.
The same profile identified his parents and sisters, but Kaze’s public work since then has centred almost entirely on coaching. This biography does not publish the name of his child or speculate about additional children, a spouse or a partner.
The absence of newer public information does not prove that Kaze is single, married or in a relationship. It means only that his current status has not been established by reliable, recent public sources.
Cédric Kaze Career Timeline
Year | Event | Significance |
1980 | Born in Bujumbura on 15 July | Burundian origin and later regional coaching identity |
2007 | Began work with Burundi’s under-17 national set-up | Started a multi-level national-team coaching pathway |
2009 | Took charge of Atlético Olympic | Began the first well-documented senior club chapter of his career |
2011 | Led Atlético Olympic to the Burundian title | Won the league during an unbeaten campaign |
2012 | Named East and Central Africa coach of the year | Earned regional recognition after sustained domestic success |
2013 | Coached Mukura Victory Sports in Rwanda | Expanded his career beyond Burundi |
2015 | Moved to Canada | Entered North American youth development and later an FC Barcelona academy |
2020 | Appointed Young Africans head coach | Took charge of one of East Africa’s largest clubs |
2021 | Left Young Africans after five months | First Yanga spell ended, before a later technical-team return |
2023 | Helped Young Africans reach the CAF Confederation Cup final | Contributed to a six-trophy partnership with Nasreddine Nabi |
2023 | Resigned as Namungo head coach | Left after six winless league matches |
2024 | Joined Kaizer Chiefs as assistant coach | Reunited with Nabi in South African football |
2025 | Won the Nedbank Cup with Chiefs’ technical team | Helped end the club’s ten-year trophy drought |
2025 | Took shared leadership after Nabi’s departure | Led Chiefs with Khalil Ben Youssef during the 2025–26 season |
2026 | Left Chiefs after his contract ended | Completed a 39-match shared leadership campaign |
2026 | Became Sekhukhune United head coach | Returned to sole head-coach responsibility in South Africa |
2026 | Left Sekhukhune by mutual agreement | Brief appointment ended on 1 September |
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Cédric Kaze?
Cédric Kaze is a Burundian professional football coach. He has worked with Burundi’s national teams, Atlético Olympic, Mukura Victory Sports, Young Africans, Namungo, Kaizer Chiefs and Sekhukhune United, as well as an FC Barcelona academy in Canada.
How old is Cédric Kaze?
Kaze was born on 15 July 1980 in Bujumbura. He is 46 years old as of September 2026. A 2024 Kaizer Chiefs announcement described him as 45 at a time when the 1980 date would have made him 44; the more detailed birth record and later age reporting support the 1980 date.
Is Cédric Kaze from Burundi?
Yes. Kaze was born in Bujumbura and began his coaching career in Burundi. He also worked across the country’s under-17, under-20, under-23 and senior national-team structures.
Did Cédric Kaze coach FC Barcelona?
Kaze worked for two and a half years at an FC Barcelona academy in Canada. He did not coach Barcelona’s first team in Spain. The academy experience formed part of his youth-development career.
What qualifications does Cédric Kaze have?
Kaizer Chiefs says Kaze holds a bachelor’s degree in Sport Science, a CAF A coaching licence and a German Football Federation A licence.
What did Cédric Kaze win with Young Africans?
Kaizer Chiefs credits the technical partnership of Kaze and Nasreddine Nabi with six trophies across two seasons at Young Africans. The team also reached the 2023 CAF Confederation Cup final, losing to USM Alger on away goals.
What did Cédric Kaze achieve at Kaizer Chiefs?
Kaze joined as Nabi’s assistant and was part of the staff that won the 2025 Nedbank Cup. After Nabi left, Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef led Chiefs through 39 matches in 2025–26, recording 19 wins, 11 draws and nine defeats.
Why did Cédric Kaze leave Sekhukhune United?
Sekhukhune said Kaze left by mutual agreement with immediate effect. The club did not give a detailed reason. Poor recent results created pressure, but claims about internal conflict remain unconfirmed.
Is Cédric Kaze married?
His current marital status and any spouse or partner are not publicly confirmed as of September 2026. A 2013 profile said he was unmarried at that time, but that old report cannot establish his present status.
Does Cédric Kaze have children?
The New Times reported in 2013 that Kaze had an infant son. Current family details have not been publicly established, and this biography does not identify a private child.
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