Amiens head coach Philippe Hinschberger says Bongani Zungu does not have the physique of a professional footballer with reports claiming he’s 10kgs overweight.

The Bafana Bafana midfielder has yet to feature with the French club since returning from his league title-winning loan spell with Glasgow Rangers last season.

After an initial hiccup with Covid-19 travel restrictions and visa complications that left him stranded in South Africa, Zungu returned late to the club and looked to regain full fitness once again in order to attract the attention of potential new suitors.

But the Amiens coach says his player’s current condition will not allow him to earn game time as he urged the 29-year-old to work harder to shed the excess weight.

“Bongani is not at all ready. His problem is above all a problem of weight,” Hinschberger recently told the media.

“However, he’s been working for a while and not just one session a day. It’s a small anomaly, we often talk about it with him and the player must also take charge. We do the maximum.”

According to LeAmienois, Zungu is still 10 kilograms above his standard body mass index (BMI) which is something similar his teammate Eddy Gnahoré who was slammed for during pre-season.

“He doesn’t necessarily go further than Eddy (Gnahoré) but the latter lost weight faster than Bongz. Afterwards, he remains very good with the ball, in reading the game, but we are on mini-fields, reduced games,” he added.

“He is a player that I don’t know, I also watched videos to see his strengths, which he does well but he still has weight, not at all the physique of a professional footballer.”

Zungu will be aiming to return to full fitness for the second half of the season as his contract with the Ligue 2 club expires in July.