Jwaneng Galaxy football club has just announced their separation with some of their top players being Thero Setsile, Fortunate Thularo, Katlego Mbise and Kelapile Ndlovu.
The public relations officer (PRO) of the mining club, Tankiso Morake has said the closure on football has affected the club’s income hence the separation they see themselves going through with some of their players.
However, even though lack of funds is on the top list of the separation, the club holds on to the on-going transfer window.
“We separated with Thulare and Ndlovu because their contracts long ended in June but a decision was taken not to renew their contracts. As for Mbise, he long wrote us a letter requesting we separate and we agreed to release him as per his request,” Morake explained.
However, for Setsile it was a different kind of tie break as he could not bear a salary cut.
“We negotiated a salary cut with all our players and the good thing was that they saw how the situation was like and agreed to our offer without any trouble. On the other hand, Setsile was the only player who demanded full pay noting that he is not getting involved in salary cuts,” Morake explained further.
Highlighting that due to failure to meet Setsile’s request, he asked to be released to play for other teams who can afford him; and the club gladly cut ties with him.
“Our challenge is that we have more than a year having football on halt and we do not know how and when we will begin to kick the ball. It has been noted that the league is returning but one question that remains is ‘Are we really going to play’ and how much will we be playing for? And this pushes us as a team to negotiate lower salaries with players,” he said.
“We are in tough times; sponsors are not coming through and we do not blame them because they cannot sponsor a team without knowing exactly when football will resume. Sponsors want milage and we may fail to give them that even though we want money as a team,” Morake explained.
For Galaxy, gate takings was not the only way to make money as they have a restaurant, sports shop and sports bar they have been depending on. But due to the halt on football, the sports shop has not been doing well.
“We are depending on the sell of food to make extra money as a club, the sports bar has been closed due to the alcohol ban,” he said.