’LANDERS PLAYERS REJECT SALARIES

MBABANE – As Mbabane Highlanders prepare to return to the field of play, some players rejected salaries offered by the teams patrons on Tuesday afternoon.

The bone of contention, it has been established, is that the scale they were paying them at is different from their current terms - in terms of monthly wages. Apparently, the contracts file that was used by the patrons and the newly-announced Management Committee to pay the players their October salaries yesterday did not reflect some who had improved terms for the new season.

The large chunk included senior players, mainly those who had long term contracts with the capital city giants.
Speaking on condition of anonymity in fear of victimisation by the current regime, at least three players confirmed they turned down their salaries because they were lower than their current earnings.
“Some took the money but I rejected mine because it was not my current rate,” said one of the stars.

It is understood the patrons used information from the PLS contracts files to pay the players wherein it is alleged some were not updated after every season as they were deemed running contracts despite getting new terms yearly.  
Already, some players who were paid electronically by resigned boss Bheki ‘Rubber’ Simelane have been sent to print bank statements to prove their current wages.

However, the players are hard at work and captain Xolani ‘Chocco’ Sibandze came to the defence of his teammates.
“We have new people around and we are familiarising ourselves with them. We will have to adapt and by match day, the spirit should be back to normal,” he coyly said. 

Highlanders are preparing to return to the field of play for the first time since the fateful Sunday of October 23 where a section of their supporters attacked resigned Managing Director Bheki ‘Rubber’ Simelane. Since then, the ‘Black Bull’ has had two MTN league matches against Moneni Pirates and Manzini Sea Birds postponed as the Premier League of Swaziland (PLS) allowed the team’s patrons to normalise what was brewing to be a turmoil in the country’s most successful side in history.
On Monday, the PLS further injected E300 000 to the capital city giants for normalisation purposes.

Green Mamba will be next for Highlanders on Saturday at the Mavuso Sports Centre. Patrons Chairman Isaac Shabangu said the issue of payments were handled by the interim MC.

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