Pirates secured Martin at a cut-price fee?

Last week, Orlando Pirates confirmed the capture of speedy utility player Craig Martin from Cape Town City for an undisclosed fee, and that the 29-year-old put pen to paper on a two-and-a-half season deal.

He was announced the same day as veteran attacker Ndumiso Mabena, who had been training with coach Jose Riveiro’s squad and will officially join the club in January 2023.

Now, word reaching the Siya crew is that the Buccaneers landed Martins on a cut-price fee.

Back in 2019, when Pirates initially expressed an interest in the Bafana Bafana fullback, City reportedly slapped a R5 million tag on the player and as his stock grew, so did his price tag, with City’s asking price eventually rising to R8 million.

City’s businessman owner John Comitis thereafter went on record saying that the player was worth €2.5 million (±R46 million).

Siya sources have now revealed that Pirates paid nowhere near these figures. While the sources would not divulge the figure, they indicated that it was a cut-price fee as the club was looking to offload him and free up their wage bill.

In fact, it was yet another brilliant piece of business from Comitis, who managed to profit from Martin given that the player had fallen out of the plans at City and was on his way out of the club anyway. City managed to salvage a fee for his services, albeit at a fraction of their initial evaluation, as Martin still had two years left to run on his contract with City.

While he was a regular for the Citizens in seasons gone by, Martin had been scarcely used this season by coach Eric Tinkler, featuring just 12 times in all competitions for City.

Upon his arrival at Pirates next month, he will face stiff competition from the likes of Thabiso Monyane and Bandile Shandu for the right back berth, although he can be deployed as a winger too.