Epac threaten to pull out of Sulom
Epac FC owner Dini Josaya Banda has expressed frustration with the way Sulom and FAM handle the transfer issues of their players who intend to join other teams.
Josaya Banda has warned Sulom that should it fail to handle the transfer deals of Pilirani Zonda and Mussa Manyenje [to Big Bullets], Stanely Malata and Noel Mlelemba [to Airborne Rangers], the team will withdraw from the Super League.
“Sulom, and to some certain extent FAM, are not helping us on player transfers. Before players go for trials with a certain team, there is supposed to be an agreement between the team that own the player and where he wants to go but, unfortunately, that was not the case with these players.
“We tried to get Sulom’s intervention, but to no avail. To make matters worse, during the bonanzas, FAM backed the other teams to feature the players. These teams are failing to honour payments and yet they are still keeping our players,” said Josaya-Banda.
He also said Sulom has a tendency of processing temporal transfer clearances for players when an agreement has not been reached on the basis of rescuing the player from inactivity.
“So, we are saying this time if Sulom toys around with the idea of issuing temporal clearances, then I will just disband the team because there is no fairness,” warned Josaya Banda.
“We cannot be a breeding ground for other teams. We also want to buy players that we have recruited from other teams,” he added.
But Sulom general secretary Williams Banda said this time around the league will be strict on clearances.
“We will only register new players upon confirmation from their previous teams that all the transfer procedures had been processed. The other thing is that we are now implementing player licensing, therefore, it will not be possible for teams to register players illegally,” said Banda.
“The other problem is that there are cases where teams negotiate transfers by themselves and only involve us when things get out of hand. In such circumstances it becomes difficult for us to help,” he said.
In a related development, Njenjete, as Epac are popularly known, have said they are yet to approve lanky forward Ishmael Thindwa’s international transfer certificate (ITC) because his prospective Zimbabwean club Caps United, are yet to honour full payment.
Epac administration manager, Roy Abromo Mdechi, said Caps have asked to pay the K3 million transfer balance [from K5 million fee] in two instalments.
“They have asked for our favour to allow them to pay K2 million by tomorrow and then conclude the balance in June, which we have accepted,” said Mdechi.
Thindwa missed Caps’ opening game of the season against ZPC Kariba as the Makepekepe made a slow start to their Castle Lager Premiership campaign last Sunday, but his compatriot Gerald Phiri Jnr played a full game.
