They left me with no choice

“THE GUY ENDED UP FIGHTING WITH THE PEOPLE TO HOTEL THAT AN EXTENT HE EVEN CALLED POLICE FOR THE THEM. HE MAKING UP WAS STORIES…”

In 2022, the dream of making a living out of football took Thulani Cele to Georgia. When he boarded a flight in April that year, little did he know that he would end up in a maximum prison in a foreign country and serving a sentence. The midfielder had been discovered through the Nedbank Ke Yona Team search and went on to sign a professional contract with AmaZulu FC. Following stints with TS Sporting and Summerfield Dynamos, he jumped at what he thought was an opportunity to try his luck overseas when it was presented to him. Yet soon after landing on the other side, the scam revealed itself. The dream evaporated in front of his eyes, and instead what awaited was an 18-month sentence. What happened? How could he ‘steal a cellphone’ in a foreign land, having gone there on a football mission? Why does he believe the dream has not yet died? Soccer Laduma’s Masebe Qina gets the 24-year-old to open up on his terrifying ordeal in this emotional interview.

Masebe Qina: Thulani, how are you holding up?

Thulani Cele: (Sighs heavily) I’m fine, and I can’t complain. I’ve tried to forget about what happened to me here in Georgia. It hasn’t been easy, but at the end of the day, I had to forget about everything that I went through. Since last month, I’ve been training and working on returning to the field of play. I’m getting myself ready for whatever team that may be interested in my services. What is important for me is to be ready so that when I get an opportunity to train with a team, I won’t struggle with fitness and things like that.

MQ: So, the plan is to get a club in Georgia…

TC: For now, yes, I would like to find a club here in Georgia. This is where I am and for me, it makes sense to try and get a club here because that’s why I came here in the first place. I’d be a happy guy if I can get my mission accomplished here in Georgia. One day when I leave Georgia, I will have achieved what I wanted to achieve here.

MQ: Some people remember you from the Nedbank Ke Yona Team and AmaZulu FC. How did you end up in Georgia?

TC: From the Nedbank Ke Yona Team, I went on to sign with AmaZulu, but I ended up going on loan at TS Sporting in the NFD (National First Division, now officially called Motsepe Foundation Championship). When my contract with AmaZulu came to an end, I went to join Summerfield Dynamos (in the ABC Motsepe League) under coach Clinton Larsen. I had been there for almost the entire season when I got the invitation to come to Georgia in April. Collen ‘Baggio’ Mashawa (football agent) organised the trials for me. He told me that he had communicated with one of his colleagues here in Georgia and that’s how the trial was organised. I remember that on the day of me coming to Georgia, the team (Summerfield Dynamos) was playing against (Mamelodi) Sundowns in the quarterfinals of the Nedbank Cup and I missed that game. As per the invitation letter I got, I was meant to train with FC Gagra and the second option was going to be FC Gareji.

MQ: Sure…

TC: The guy who fetched me from the airport in Georgia, who is also an agent, started demanding money from me claiming that he had spent a lot on me. He said he wanted his agent fee and I paid the money to him. He spoke to the people at the hotel for them to accommodate me and he promised them that I was going to be there for a day or two and then he would fetch me. I remember it was on a Sunday when I arrived at the hotel and the agreement was that I was going to start my trial the following day, which was a Monday. My main problem was that I didn’t understand the language and it was difficult for me to communicate. Even when he negotiated with the hotel and stuff like that, I would just be there listening to him without being able to say anything to argue whatever was being said on my behalf. The guy demanded all the money I had, including money for transport to the said trials, and I found myself in a tough situation. Because I was under the impression that he was an agent, I trusted him and gave him the money when he demanded it. I was hoping that he was going to assist me with getting a club. Little did I know that it was the last time I was seeing him that day.

MQ: Before leaving for Georgia, did you know you’d be paying for the trials?

TC: All that I was told about was the money for accommodation and I didn’t have a problem with that because I couldn’t expect to go to Georgia and stay in a hotel for free. Also, I was prepared to pay for transport, but I was quite surprised when he demanded money for other things. When the guy disappeared, I had been left with something like R900 in my pocket and that kind of money is nothing in a country like Georgia. It was never going to be enough to take care of my needs. I didn’t go to the trials that Monday and I kept on texting the guy to find out what was going on and he was telling me that the team had no coach and that I should be patient. When I did my research on the internet, I did see that indeed the team had just fired the coach and therefore I was prepared to wait. I would go outside the hotel and to the nearby parks to train on my own and things like that. The hotel was giving me food at the guy’s request over the phone, and he promised that he would pay at a later stage. After three days at the hotel and with the guy nowhere to be found, the hotel people started panicking and they were asking me questions. Eventually, they ran out of patience at the hotel, and they confiscated my passport. That was the beginning of my problems.

MQ: Hectic! So, what did you do next?

TC: It was a real struggle for me because I couldn’t even move around the area without my passport. I even missed my flight back to South Africa because on the day I was supposed to come back, I still didn’t have my passport with me. I was supposed to come back home on 10 May, but that didn’t happen. The agreement was that I would be in Georgia for a month and come back to South Africa to play in the play-offs with Summerfield Dynamos. What made things even worse was that the guy ended up fighting with the hotel people to an extent that he even called the police for them. He was making up stories that the hotel had kidnapped me and that the police should intervene. When the police came, I told them that he was the one who scammed me and that the stories about me being kidnapped were made up. I told the police that the hotel staff had been kind to me and did nothing wrong.

MQ: We understand that there was also a case that was opened against the agent.

TC: There was no way that I would badmouth people who were taking good care of me like that. So, after he tried to get the police involved, we opened a case against him at the police station. It was after a week that I had been at the hotel, and I was being well looked after, but there was no payment that was being made to the hotel. At that point, I had already made Baggio back home aware of what was going on and he told me that he was running around trying to getmoneytohelpme.

MQ: It sounds like you went through hell over there.

TC: It was difficult and what made things even worse for me was that I wasn’t being told the truth. Had I been told the truth from the beginning, maybe I would have tried something, like speaking to my family back home and asking for money to get me out of the situation. Yes, I was scared to tell them at home of my situation, but had I been told the truth from the onset, I would have ended up telling them and maybe I would have cut my stay in Georgia short to come back home.

MQ: How did you end up in prison?

TC: When the hotel people saw that there wasn’t any payment forthcoming for my stay there, they confiscated my cellphones and laptop. I’m not sure if the plan was to sell them so as to recover some of the money I owed or what, but I ended up with nothing belonging to me. On my way out of the hotel, without even knowing where I was going, I came across a girl who was walking in the street. I asked her to allow me to use her cellphone so that I could call home, but because of the language barrier she couldn’t understand what I was saying. I tried to use my hands to get my point across, only to find out that she thought I was demanding the phone with the aim of mugging her. The thing is, in Georgia, English is not even their third language and it is very difficult to communicate with them if you don’t speak any of their languages. Before I knew it, there were police who demanded answers on what was going on and they too didn’t understand English. The police left and I went back to the hotel and asked for my cellphone so that I could call home. That’s how I managed to speak to my grandmother, and together with my mother they tried to get some money for me. My bill at the time at the hotel was around R35 000. The hotel had already told me that I needed to pay the amount that I would be able to pay as they could see that I wouldn’t be able to pay all of it.

MQ: Very kind of them.

TC: So, I did receive some money from home, and I was able to pay the hotel and I got my passport back. I then tried to activate my flight ticket, but I was told from Qatar Airways that I needed to pay a fine amounting to R4 600 for missing my previous flight. I again called home and the friends in South Africa, and I got more money sent to me for my flight to be booked again. On the day I thought I was coming back home in June 2022, I was intercepted by the authorities at the airport and told that I wasn’t going to be able to leave the country for South Africa because I was under investigation. I was kept in one place for nine days before I

was taken to a maximum prison.

MQ: Did you have anyone assisting you during the court proceedings?

TC: I did have a lawyer, but she didn’t understand a single word of English. I went through a very bad experience in that court because I was there on my own without any assistance. I had no one translating for me to understand what was being said. Yes, there was someone who was supposed to be a translator, but he didn’t understand English – I’d be telling him this and he’d be saying his own things in translating. After five months of the trial, I was sentenced. I was advised by them to plead guilty so that I could get a shorter sentence, according to them. They said if I pleaded not guilty, I would get something like five to six years in pri son if found guilty in the end, but if I pleaded guilty, it would be one year and six months. They left me with no choice but to plead guilty. So, I have been in prison for 18 months.

MQ: We can only imagine what it must have been like being imprisoned in a foreign country.

TC: It was bad because of the environment that I found myself in, but because I was in there together with other foreigners, it kind of made the situation better than I had imagined. Most of the inmates I was with were from Africa, so it was better to communicate with them. Others were from China, India, Israel and Jordan and they were very helpful in making my stay there manageable. What I was worried about was that I couldn’t tell them at home that I was being arrested because the moment I was being intercepted at the airport, I got my phone and all my belongings confiscated. I went for months without communicating with my family. When I eventually came out of prison in December last year, I didn’t get my phones and clothes, and I was being told a lot of stories when I asked about them.

MQ: Thulani, we are deeply sorry for what you went through. Hopefully your story opens a lot of eyes out there. We also wish that your Georgia excursion has a happy ending.

TC: Ayikh’ inkinga. Ngiyabonga kakhulu (No problem. Thank you very much). ❐