While it wasn’t an easy decision, Maritzburg United Head Coach Ernst Middendorp says the decision to sell Rushine De Reuck to Mamelodi Sundowns was done in the best interests of the club.
De Reuck’s move to Chloorkop has been the biggest internal transfer of this January/February window. Last year’s PSL defender of the season was more than likely at the top of most club’s wanted list.
The 25-year-old De Reuck was just short of 100 appearances for The Team of Choice. The Capetonian started at the ASD Academy, before moving to Paços de Ferreira in Portugal. He returned home and joined second tier Milano United. De Reuck moved on to play in the third tier with Hellenic before joining Maritzburg as a free agent four years ago.
With Maritzburg struggling in 14th position on the DStv Premiership table, there must have been concerns about selling De Reuck at this time.
Middendorp explained that before they came to the decision, the club’s decision-makers came together and unanimously decided that letting De Reuck move on would be the best thing.
“Let me be very clear, first of all, it is a decision done by the club responsibilities. Meaning the coach is one of the responsibilities. The chairman is another part of the responsibility. The management is part of the responsibilities,” Middendorp said on Friday.
“And we all together, had a very clear understanding, for different reasons, I don’t want to explain or to go deeper into it, but it was absolutely a decision done by this conglomerate of decisions and power of the club.”
“And good now, it’s done. I think Rushine is happy where he is now. We have to find solutions inside our squad in the moment. But I think that’s very, very clear and this is not something where we are getting split inside. I’m very proud to be part of this dimension, what we have in this example, we discussed it, we took the pros and the cons for a decision like this and of course, it would have been something that could have gone in the other direction but in the end, we were all very clear about it. That is a decision we have to make, we will make, and we move on.”
