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Spirits down in Nomads camp
By
Garry Chirwa |
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Morale at Lali Lubani Road, home of Mighty MTL Wanderers, is down because they are not being paid their dues, a top senior player has revealed.
The player, who sought anonymity and claimed he was speaking on behalf of his team-mates, also accused the new executive of deliberately ignoring their requests for a round table meeting to discuss problems affecting the club.
The player claimed in an interview yesterday they have not been paid game bonuses for their Chibuku Super League and Embassy Trophy victories over Illovo and Moyale Barracks respectively.
“We have also not been paid bonuses for three pre-season matches, yet we hear that some officials can afford to woo a player from another club with K100,000.
“Perhaps the K100,000 should have settled the K5,000 signing-on fee balance owed to each player,” said the player, in direct reference to reports that the Nomads tried to woo Fisher Kondowe from Total Big Bullets with a K100,000 cheque.
He added that apart from the game bonuses, the players have also not yet been paid their upkeep and transport allowances.
But the Nomads general secretary Willie Kalonga parried the claims.
“Firstly, let me put the record straight. There was a verbal agreement with the players that they will be paid all their game bonuses and upkeep allowances at the end of every month and they will sign contracts to that effect.
“That is why they have not been paid game bonuses for the two games that we have won...they will be paid that shortly,” Kalonga said.
He also said the players were not given their training allowances for last week on Tuesday because their treasurer Edward Kavwenje was ill.
“But they will be paid the training allowances today and hopefully the game bonuses very soon.”
He also poured cold water on claims that some of the officials were concentrating on luring players from other clubs by offering them huge sums of money when there were a lot of problems within the team.
“If they are referring to the K100,000, the vice chairman (Aziz Issa) already clarified that it was not meant for Fischer, it was for spare parts which were supposed to be bought by Fischer’s cousin. Unlike Peter (Mponda), Fischer was never on our plans.
“Secondly, that cheque did not belong to Wanderers, it was Issa’s personal cheque. So I cannot be drawn to comment much on that.”
Kalonga also defended the executive on allegations that it was avoiding a meeting with the players.
“That is also not true. In fact, it was the chairman himself (Humphrey Mvula) who suggested that we should meet the players some two weeks ago, but the meeting failed because he went to attend a funeral somewhere,” Kalonga said.
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