Richards Bay chairman Sifiso Biyela has rubbished reports that his club is up for sale, labeling the story as “utter nonsense”.
Biyela argued that how can a club be on the market when they have already signed players ahead of next season?
Bay have signed Lucky Mohomi, Letsie Koapeng, Thato Mohlamme, Justice Figareido, UMsinga United trio Thobani Mthembu, Nkululeko Miya, Bandile Ndlovu after an impressive showing in the national ABC Motsepe League playoffs that took place last week in Pietermaritzburg.
The players from UMsinga, Biyela told iDiski Times that they have been signed, despite the club having not gone on record about them in any statement yet.
But there had been reports in local media that Richard Bay are up for sale, which was strongly denied by Biyela when contacted on Friday.
“This is nonsense, it is not true that the club is on sale,” Biyela told iDiski Times.
“[This story] is meant to destabilize the club. The club has already signed five players and in fact if you include three from UMsinga United last week, the club is busy with preparations and we are opening on 26 June for the pre-season.
“So all systems go and whoever is writing this story, it is baseless and there is no truth in it.”
Meanwhile, Bay will make a decision about their coach next week, with caretaker coach Vasili Manousakis’s contract expiring at the end of June.
Manousakis was appointed as the caretaker coach in March following a string of poor results. The former AmaZulu and Cape Town City assistant coach was already part of the technical team then, as he was named co-coach alongside Pitso Dladla before the season got underway.
After winning seven matches and climbing into second place on the DStv Premiership table behind Mamelodi Sundowns in November before the enforced FIFA World Cup break, they only won one match in second half of the campaign, against Marumo Gallants in January.
However, there were no win afterwards, as they finished the campaign with 15 games without a victory, including seven games in which Manousakis was in charge. They earned just four out of possible 41 points in the second half of the season.
“We will meet on Monday and we will make a decision and see which direction we are taking with regards to the coach,” added Biyela.
Story by Robin-Duke Madlala (@duke_robin).
