Bidvest Wits
Almost a century of history will be lost following the sale of BidVest Wits and former players slam the actions of those who allowed it to happen.
Just a year before a historic centenary celebrations, BidVest Wits will cease to exist after they were bought by Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila. The financial strain might have been building up for two years but what wasn’t foreseen was that the club would be sold so soon. KICK OFF’s Lovemore Moyo details one of the saddest chapters in domestic football.
BidVest Wits will no longer be in existence should their pending sale to the owner of GladAfrica Championship side Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila (TTM) be approved by the PSL. All this on the eve of their 100-year celebrations, which were set to kick-off in 2021.
It sounds almost surreal that with effect from next season, there won’t be any professional football to watch at BidVest Wits with their traditional Friday night home fixture at Milpark.
The smoke from the fire of speculation had already been up in the air for weeks about the sale after TTM sold their second-tier status in anticipation of funding the acquisition of a PSL franchise.
TTM boss Masapa Mulaudzi then confirmed they had bought Wits, which they would then rename and then relocate to Limpopo, playing their home games at Thohoyandou Stadium.
By the time Wits chairperson Alan Fainman
released a statement it was just a mere rehash of what was already in the public domain.
For over a year whispers that Wits were sinking into financial troubles circulated with the club cutting down its staff, but it wasn’t imagined that there would eventually be such a radical measure taken to effectively kill off the professional side.
Suddenly the future of players, coaches, administrators and all the office staff at Sturrock Park, along with the club’s vibrant and successful development structures, are all on shaky ground.
“For Wits to have been sold in this manner, something somewhere wasn’t right. I don’t know what it is, but it will come out as time goes on,” says former player Roan Maulgue.
Maulgue only ever played for Wits through his 13 years in the professional ranks, which stretched to 2003, during which he started 237 games and regularly captained the club. So, his hurting is understandable.
The former midfielder adds: “In my opinion, some decisions have been made for all the wrong reasons. South Africa will be at a huge loss without Wits because this is a club that has been around for 99 years and has always been well run.
“I am not a product of their development, but I admired how the academy was always run. There are some things that you cannot sell for cash and Wits is worth more than money. Trust me, something is just out of place in this whole transaction.
“I understand that running Wits might have become expensive, but I don’t find sense in getting rid of this club in this way.
There should have been a better way to solve this and I think it would have involved getting new investors who will keep the club where it is.
“I don’t see TTM lasting even two years in the league because they will not have the same quality as Wits. I don’t know the new owner, but this is going to be a downgrade for this football club. For a club with such structures to be disposed of in such a way is heart-breaking.”
‘I feel for the Schloss family’
Wits has always been a club small in stature but huge in pride and history, even in the days they operated as a semiprofessional outfit.
Maulgue arrived when Raymond Hack was the chairman, Professor Ronnie Schloss was sitting as president, and Derek Blanckensee ran the operations with
George Mogotsi being the go-to man, be it gatekeeping issues, security, transport or general administration work.
Mogotsi has been involved with the club for 36 years in one capacity or the other.
Then there is the kitman Jack Ndlovu – a man who went out of his way to even recruit players for the club, among them Sibusiso Vilakazi.
“I feel for the Schloss family who have been part of the club for as long as it has been there, but were not consulted about this sale,” Maulgue adds.
“They should have been given consideration but that they were not even asked anything makes me angry because it is wrong. Wits is not about money. I don’t care what people say, you cannot buy all of that because Wits is like a foundation for football and a fountain of wisdom. To build a proper club you need a foundation and Wits has always had that.
“I feel pain thinking about people like George, who have given all their lives to this club that became like his family. Imagine how much he will have to adjust now in his life. What has happened makes me want to cry because I remained attached to the club so many years after I left.
“The legacy of Wits is frightening and to think that it will now be gone down the drain is scary. I am not surprised Raymond [Hack] spoke the way he did when he said they won’t let the club die because the sponsor has sold the franchise.
“It makes me mad to think that everything which defines Wits has now been given away just like that,” argues Maulgue.
So how did it get to BidVest taking over what was previously known as Wits University?
What started out as a financial injection from BidVest in the days when they were headline sponsors of the club after taking over from Investec, kept growing every year as the university loosened the screws.
By 2006 the BidVest Group, who had Cyril Ramaphosa as chairman, had both hands on the club and much began to change.
The biggest shock
In the first year back in the PSL after an unlikely relegation in 2004/05, they flexed their muscle, signing as many as 16 players, including Moeneeb Josephs, the late Abram Raselemane, Lucas Sebona and Nhlanhla Kubeka, along with the Brazilian pair of Marcos de Jesus and Danilo Julio.
“It has been the biggest shock I have had in my football life,” says Boebie Solomons, who was coach when the BidVest Group took control.
“I never, ever thought that a club like Wits, with such a powerful financial backing, would be sold. They have the best financial backing in the country after Mamelodi Sundowns. BidVest is one of the richest companies in South Africa, so that is why I was very shocked, and I don’t know what made them sell the club.
“It is a big worry for me that such legacy can just be swept away so easily. If a club like Wits can be sold, then it tells you about the uncertainty in football. I don’t think a club like Wits would come cheap because it is not a ‘palooka’ club.
“Whoever bought the club must have put in a lot of money even though I found it strange that the buyer moved ahead of the
THE SOLUTION LIES IN PSL DISCOURAGING THIS TREND OF PEOPLE COMING IN BUY THEIR WAY INTO THE LEAGUE
seller. I wouldn’t know about issues relating to how the club was now being run and if it would be sustainable because I never got myself involved in financial matters of the club.
“All I did was stick to the field and never wanted to even know what the players earned because if I did that then it creates friction and you end up not treating all players the same way,” says the veteran gaffer.
‘It’s sad and scandalous’
When the sale of Wits was discussed in the media it was established that the university had relinquished its shares to BidVest.
Wits had for long been a nurturing club dependant on its development structures, but it all changed with BidVest pumping money into the team and changing it into a buying club with the wage bill on the up for most of the last decade.
Success under Gavin Hunt, who had Jose Ferreira running the office, was achieved with a far bigger budget than prior their arrival.
By the time Ferreira stepped aside last year, sustainability questions were already being asked.
“It is rather sad and scandalous that anyone can walk in and buy a club with so c like Wits and then move it away to wherever they want and the expectation be that all is well,” reasons club legend Peter Gordon.
Gordon defines what Wits was all about having played the most games in the club’s history, which includes having Gary Bailey as a player and Eddie Lewis as coach. Bailey and Lewis both played for Manchester United.
“I know a lot of people are angry because the club will no longer be turning 100 next year. Even if Wits keep the juniors going it will not last because it won’t work. We have seen it happen before with other clubs. It will never be the same again and now Wits is all history. What makes it sad is that the people who get into football are just in it for other interests.
“Maybe since they have the money, they also want the fame, but I just don’t know what it is. The guys that I have spoken to who were formerly with Wits are disgusted. They are really upset. In my case I spent 14 years of my life going there so the memories run deeper.
“I think we have seen through the years that this kind of approach of buying clubs doesn’t work if you want to have a sustainable club. Just have a look at topflight league clubs that were bought and tell me what happened to them?
“The solution lies in PSL discouraging this trend of people coming in to buy their way into the league. Football should be about teams winning promotion instead of buying one and then selling, so that you buy another in a different league.
“It would also be interesting to know where the money to buy these clubs comes from. It shouldn’t have never happened this way and the PSL should put its foot down about this
rend,” says Gordon.
inancial woes
However, there seems o have been a case of Wits iting off more than they ould chew in the bid to be ompetitive.
“I heard there were nancial issues at the club, ut nothing was really said. aybe the sponsors invested ay too much money and idn’t get the return that they w e o .
“Wits has never been a club that attracts huge crowds with their money coming from television rights. Even though it was the sale of the club was money related, I think they shouldn’t have allowed for it to be bought by someone who will take it away from Wits.
“The condition of keeping the club where it is should have been a priority to protect the history, but now it is all gone,” Gordan adds.
For former Wits midfielder Charles Yohanne, the pain runs deeper as he was still employed by the club as a development coach. Yohanne joined Wits during the 1997/98 season from AmaZulu and spent close to a decade there as a player, scoring 40 goals in the 234 games that he started on the left flank.
Yohanne then moved to FC AK in 2006 and since retiring has spent another dozen years in Wits’ youth structures.
“It is obviously not a situation that anyone wants to be in, but we will have to find a way forward. The club has been sold and now it is a waiting game in finding solutions,” says the former Zimbabwe international.
WHAT MAKES IT SAD IS THAT THE PEOPLE WHO GET INTO FOOTBALL ARE JUST IN IT FOR OTHER INTEREST