The past three seasons have been the best for Kgatleng side, Mochudi Centre Chiefs, since its formation almost forty years ago.
They managed to win the league Championships and the lucrative Coca-Cola tournament. They also finished as league runners up twice and even reached the finals of the Coca-Cola tournament this season.
Definitely, the achievement by Chiefs is what other teams are just aspiring for.
However, beneath the success by the club seems to be squabbles that if not attended to with immediate effect, pummeling might become the order of the day.
Over the weekend, the team met for their Annual General Meeting (AGM) to vote for the new executive committee and even bring the three year financial statements of the team. However, things had to change at the last minute as only additional members were voted in. The logic being that other executive committee positions in the team should be accompanied by professionals.
Information reaching Sunday Standard is that the additional members, the majority of whom come from the previous executive committee, are not happy. They had wanted to stay put in the team and continue to call the shots.
Information reaching Sunday Standard is that some members were even campaigning before the AGM of the team and had a strong lobby list.
“What we have done is one of the ways to pave the way for the team towards professionalism and we want to shift from the community running of the team. We want it to be run like a business entity but some people want us to go back whereby the team can be easily exploited,” said one prominent member of the team who wanted to remain anonymous. ”The thorny issue currently at the team is the financial irregularities.
The team has not released their financial statements for three seasons. But the ones released at the AGM raised more questions than answers. Sunday Standard is in possession of a copy of the financial statement “Some players are owed signing on fees while some executive committee members claim they are owed money amounting into hundreds of thousands. Even some supporters of the team are said to be owing the team money from the sale of t-shirts. Surprisingly the money is from the three seasons when the team won the league championship, and the question is why they waited for such a long period.
What raises eyebrows more is the team’s annual spending which is more than P2 million.
However, the budget for most Premier League teams is around half of that.
The statements have not gone down well with most members of the team and they have called for an independent auditor to verify everything. The issue that is already cropping up is the salaries of the players for the month of June. “Already, the team officials are running around pleading for the salaries of the players. But we were finalists in the Coca-Cola Cup and runners up in the league. The total amount the team should have is around P700 000. Where has all the money gone now,” asked another team member who also wanted to remain anonymous.