Team struggling to prise prize money from sponsors’ grip

NAMAKWA-based ABC Motsepe League football club Olympics FC find themselves in the crosshairs of a double non-payment situation that is causing them quite a headache.

First a provincial Solar Youth Cup sponsor has failed to cough up the club’s winnings from a recent tournament, and now the Safa-linked association to which Olympics have been part of for over 15 years have also not paid them.

Namakwa school principal, and owner of Olympics, Clive De Jongh this week alleged that Safa has not honoured their commitment to pay the club R25 000 in prize money which had become due to them for second placing in the A stream of the dual-stream Safa ABC Motsepe League in the 2017/18 season.

De Jongh also said they have yet to be reimbursed for remittance fees of roughly R5 600 which they had paid to referees to officiate at their official league matches. The norm was for Safa to reimburse the clubs for this expense at the end of the season.

When approached for a response Safa provincial secretary Willem Coetzee told the DFA that there were channels that had to be followed. “The clubs must follow procedure and contact Safa directly with their complaints,” he said.

Other than that Coetzee, said he had no comment to offer on any of De Jongh’s allegations.

De Jongh, meanwhile, also alleged that Olympics are still awaiting the rest of a R50 000 monetary prize which they won during the Northern Cape Solar Under-17 Youth Cup which took place in June this year.

Olympics had secured the second spot in the Solar Cup competition losing in the final to Orion High from De Aar. These two teams were set to receive

R50 000 and R100 000 respectively.

De Jongh said the promised prize money from the sponsors had still not been paid to them several months after the event. Instead a R25 000 deposit was paid into the Olympics club bank account about three weeks ago – half of what was due to them.

The Olympics owner said he tried to contact the competition spokesman Willie Motlogelwa to track down the rest of the outstanding money, but this had proved to be unsuccessful.

The DFA, in trying to get to the bottom of the story, also tried to contact Mr Motlegelwa telephonically and via e-mailed requesting comment on this issue, but failed to get comment from the spokesman.

Motlogelwa had asked to be contacted at an “opportune time” this week, but, after repeated calls to his number over two days, Motlogelwa’s phone could no longer be reached.