Times Of Swaziland: Malanti chiefs turn down E70 000 offer for Fashina

Malanti chiefs turn down E70 000 offer for Fashina
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 NTOKOZO MAGONGO on 31/01/2009 00:00:00


MBABANE – In an unprecedented move, Malanti Chiefs’ Director Robert Gumede
has turned down a E70 000 offer for double-registered speedy striker Olayeni
Fashina.
Instead, Gumede has demanded a sum of E300 000 for the player he bought from
Mbabane Swallows early this season, at a cost of E25 000. Fashina sneaked out of
the Pigg’s Peak side, camp for Mauritius to join top side Curepipe Starlight,
who face South Africa’s SuperSport United tomorrow in a CAF champions League
first leg in Pretoria. The pint-sized Nigerian born speedy striker left the
SwaziBank Cup defending champions on false pretence that he was headed for
trials in France, only to surface at the Islanders side. He has already featured
for the team, and according to repo-rts, the player has already made a mark for
himself. The mystery in the matter is how he was registered with Starli-ght
because his clearance is still with Malanti Chiefs.
This publication has learned that the player has since been withdrawn from the
team to face SuperSport tomorrow after it transpired that he was a Malanti
Chiefs player. In a last ditch attempt to settle the matter, his team approached
Gumede over his rightful clearance, a matter that the team director confirmed to
this publication yesterday.
cheating
"We are not taking this matter lightly. They signed our player without his
clearance and that was cheating. We invested a lot in the player and there is no
way we are going let him go just like that. I talked to the manager in Mauritius
and they only offered to give us E70 000, which is below the E300 000 we want
for the player," he said.
Gumede said if they were failing to get the player’s clearance, then they
should quickly bring him back to Malanti Chiefs where he belongs. "They first
wanted us to give them the clearance free of charge as they wanted him to play
against SuperSport and that was totally unacceptable. I’m still to contact the
National Football Association of Swaziland (NFAS) over the matter and I hope it
would be sorted soon," he said.
Gumede added that to lose Fashina was a major blow to them as they were also
preparing for the CAF Conf-ederation where they face Athletico Malcumano today
in Machava Stadium. He said they signed the player knowing his capabilities and
said it was shocking that he is playing for another team while he still belonged
to them.
Malanti Chiefs signed Fashina from Swallows for E25 000 and the Pigg’s Peak
side went on to spend E15 000 on the player’s signing on fee.