Chippa United boss Siviwe ‘Chippa’ Mpengesi has denied rumours that the club has allegedly not paid some of their DStv Diski Challenge staff for several months.
This publication was told that some of the DDC technical team and backroom staff members at Chippa haven’t received their salaries for the past few months, with some never getting paid since they started working at the club.
iDiski Times was informed that Chippa staff members were struggling to meet their monthly obligations as a consequence. This comes after some allegedly never received their salaries and some received them later than expected, with some of the DDC technical staff understood to have gone 10 months without getting paid last season.
When questioned about the outstanding monies, the club’s legal representative informed the employees that they were in fact “volunteers” last season, even though they were registered as technical members.
The publication tried to get hold of the Chilli Boys’ chairman to get some clarity on the issue and spoke to the chairman via WhatsApp messages before and after Chippa’s 2-1 defeat to Cape Town City on Tuesday.
The chairman highlighted that there is no office in Gqeberha, and admitted that the club mainly focuses on the first team and technical staff, every other thing is being handled by Sandiso, who is the son of Chippa Mpengesi, and Executive Director Lukhanyo Mzinzi.
Mpengesi stated that they don’t have many permanent staff members at the club, they only have three people who cover the entire development, which includes DDC: the DDC team head coach, a DDC assistant coach, who also works as a goalkeeper coach and U18 coach and the team manager, who is the kit man and handles all player development affairs, while all other people “are volunteers”.
“We don’t have an office in PE, we only have team and technical staff and DDC was never meant to be a permanent institution, it’s a development structure,” Mpengesi told iDiski Times.
When he was asked by the publication whether the DDC staff were indeed volunteering, he admitted that he might have to change how things are run.
“It supposed to be like that, if the club wishes to give them stipends, it’s the club’s choice but again your enquiry has opened my eyes, I will see what I must do,” he explained.
“Jonathan was with the DDC last season, he didn’t get paid the whole year. It was his first time this season.”
This publication has learnt that the matter has been escalated to the Premier Soccer League and DC is expected to sit on the case in November.
