Bay United chaos deepens
Bay United chaos deepens
Posted: 2010-07-20 13:06
The chaos surrounding the future of Bay United could become even more complicated when League officials meet on Thursday to discuss a bid for cash-strapped First Division outfit.
Safpu official Cappy Matutoane told KickOff.com this morning that he has been working with the owners of relegated Winners Park and Bay United chairman Sipho Pityana, who had threatened to place the club into liquidation, to come to an agreement over a number of issues that will safeguard the interests of both former and current players at Umlilo.
However, it now emerges that Pityana may have sold his club to another interested party without the approval of all concerned.
Chief Zubuse Mlaba, brother of Durban Mayor Amos Mlaba, told KickOff.com reporter Ernest Fakude this morning that he is the new owner of the Port Elizabeth club and intends to relocate to KwaZulu-Natal and will rename it African Wanderers this coming season.
Mlaba disclosed that he bought the club last week. “We are still trying to sort out some logistics but yes, it is true we finalised the deal to buy the club last week Friday. We have already applied to the PSL for the club to be relocated to KwaZulu-Natal and renamed African Wanderers.”
He added that they are still searching for new coach to lead the club this season.
Matutoane says this is the first time that he has heard of another party being involved in negotiations with Bay.
He says his negotiations with the would-be new owners from Winners Park are for the outstanding R1.3-million payment ordered by the PSL DRC as compensation for 10 players that were retrenched last season when Umlilo were relegated, Matutoane said that the arrangement he had arrived at was that this money was to be covered by the grants currently being withheld by the League.
With regards to outstanding monies due to current players, the Union spokesman said the latest arrangement with Pityana was that the new owners would deposit an equivalent amount with the Union’s attorneys in the event that cash-strapped Umlilo did not make good on their debt to these players.
Matutoane also confirmed that the Winners Park party had undertaken to assess current Bay players whose contracts extended beyond 2010 with a view to keeping some of them on.
He added that this process was already underway near Pretoria as players needed assurances on their future before the new season kicked off.
(KickOff.com reported earlier that former Bay coach David Bright had returned from Botswana to begin looking at players from both clubs ahead of the new season.)
Pityana acknowledged recently that they had failed to pay some of current their players salaries but said they are working to settle what due to them soon.
Regarding the League’s DRC ruling on payments to last season's players, the PE businessman said: “We also had chance to make an appeal regarding the DRC decision but again it was going to be an expensive exercise to pay all the legal costs for an appeal.”
League Chief Operations Officer Professor Ronnie Schloss says as of last night the League had not received any submissions from either the Winners Park group or from the Durban buyers. He added, however, that another earlier application to buy Umlilo had been rejected. He declined to name the party involved in that bid to buy Umlilo.
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