After over two months of offers and counter offers, Mighty Wanderers and Salima Sugar Company Limited are yet to agree on a sponsorship package for their prospective nine-month deal.
However, it has been established that while the sugar manufacturers have come up with a K60 million ‘ceiling’, the Lali Lubani Road outfit is negotiating for K20 million more.
A well-placed source confided to Weekend Nation that the Nomads made the K80 million counter-offer last week.
“The latest is that the two parties have agreed to meet this weekend as they are both concerned with the protracted negotiations,” said the source.
But the Nomads’ commercialisation task force head Humphrey Mvula, who is part of the negotiating team, was elusive on the issue.
He said: “For the moment it should be treated as a trending rumour because we have not concluded discussions with our colleagues at Salima Sugar.
“Of course, they gave us an offer of a certain amount that we cannot disclose at the moment as partial sponsorship for nine months.
“But we, as Wanderers, counter-offered asking for an improvement in the offer plus an opportunity for business opportunity because the Wanderers family loves Salima sugar.
“We will be meeting next week to finalise the discussions and thereafter, we will make substantive media announcements, suffice to state that we are still looking for additional partners to buttress our financial ability to better manage the team.”
Salima Sugar company secretary Charles Thupi could also not be drawn to comment on the package, but said the discussions are at an advanced stage.
“They sent us a proposal and we came with a counter proposal…As you know in such issues there are expectations, so we are trying to iron out one or two issues.
“But the deal will work out, it will happen,” he said.
Initially, the two parties said the deal was expected to roll out in April when it was announced that they had reached an agreement.
Despite not putting pen to paper, Salima Sugar already started dishing out part of the sponsorship.
The company has set the team’s performance as well as players and supporters’ conduct during the current season as some of the conditions for a long-term deal consideration.
