It’s once bitten twice shy for Downs’ boss
THE proposed purchase of Chippa United wingback Paseka Mako by league leaders Mamelodi Sundowns in the January transfer window has been nixed by the club’s owner Patrice Motsepe after he found out that the promising player used to be a junior with the Brazilians.
Mako‚ whose attacking play caught the eye of Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane‚ was the subject of a recent approach to Chippa by the Pretoria-based club‚ officials have told the Daily Dispatch.
A potential deal to sell Mako to the Brazilians was discussed but suddenly cancelled when Motsepe said no. The club owner did not want to spend money on a player who had previously been part of the Sundowns structures.
Mako joined Chippa United from Cape All Stars – one of many players from the Cape Town club who were taken to the PE-based franchise by former coach Dan Malesela. But before that Mako‚ who has represented SA at U23 level and hails from Zebediela in Limpopo province‚ was a junior with Sundowns.
Motsepe’s anger all goes back to the infamous loss and repurchase of Lerato Chabangu which cost Sundowns more than a few million and made the club and their free-spending president something of a laughing stock.
Chabangu signed a pre-contract with SuperSport in 2009 when at the height of his career after Downs had moved too slowly to offer him an extension of his deal.
SuperSport’s sneaky move to snatch Chabangu out from under Sundowns’ noses infuriated the mining magnate so much that he allowed Chabangu to leave six months before the end of his contract as SuperSport got him for free.
But Motsepe then decided he wanted the player back and he paid SuperSport a veritable fortune to purchase a player who had been his just six months earlier. Chabangu then did not play for the club because of a knee injury and treatment for alcohol abuse‚ costing Motsepe an entire season of wages without kicking a ball ... eventually moving onto Moroka Swallows.