How City unearth hidden talents

Comitis praises scouting network

Since their establishment in 2016, Cape Town City have been brave enough to gamble on relatively unknown players from other parts of the world, with US-born striker Nana Akosah-Bempah and Kenyan forward Masoud Juma their latest surprise signings.

The side can count players like now-departed Australian midfielder Matt Sim and his evergreen compatriot Roland Putsche among its success stories.

City chairman John Comitis has elaborated on how his international ties helped him to discover these hidden gems.

“We have a strong network of scouts in many countries in Africa, Europe and other parts. They bring us certain information about players. We have a [local] committee that assess those players by watching their footage, then if it’s a player we could sign he goes on the list as our target,” Comitis told Sowetan.

“When we know that we are going to lose a player or sell him, we go back to our database and start negotiating for that player who was scouted through these networks. Our scouting department is the strongest department in our team. We used this system to sign Sim and some other internationals.”

Having shown they don’t hold onto unhappy players by selling players like former captain Lebogang Manyama to Turkish side Konyaspor last year and Aubrey Ngoma to Mamelodi Sundowns in January, Comitis says their scouting programme is the reason it is always easier not to stand in players’ way.

“This scouting system comes into play in those situation when players choose to leave us. It helps us plug that gap easily by signing players who we have already assessed,” noted Comities.

“That keeps us in a position where we will always have a solid team. We do not want to find ourselves held to ransom by players.”

‘‘ We do not want to find ourselves held to ransom by players.