Set Keagan Dolly free — it’s the right thing to do
HOW can you make a mistake and turn around and want to penalise the person you have erred for your own error? How on earth does that work? Before you blurt out what in the blazes am I going on about, let me state my case.
Newly crowned Confederation of African Football (Caf) 2016 club of the year Mamelodi Sundowns are on a collision cause with star player Keagan Dolly.
The core of the conflict is an incredibly ludicrous, I repeat, absolutely ridiculous claim by the 2016 Caf Champions League champions.
They claim that they mistakenly fiddled with the figures of the European buyout clause in the contract of the 23-year-old wonderboy from Westbury in Johannesburg, blessed with wicked-wizardry.
Since context is king, here it goes: When Sundowns loaned Dolly to Ajax Cape Town from whom they had signed on a four-year deal, his contract was revisited for renegotiation.
During that process and in their infinite, if not wonky wisdom, the legal eagles of the club reduced Dolly’s European buyout amount from R25-million to R12.5-million.
The jury is still out on why the suited mandarins did their deed.
Dolly was busy doing what he was paid for — working wonders with that cultured left foot of his. Crispy crosses. Glorious goals. Complete commitment to the cause of the Chloorkop side.
Be it Premier Soccer League, Champions League, Olympic Games, Club World Cup, Dolly didn’t just pitch, he performed excellently.
In fact, Dolly has been so good he became the first South African player to be included in the Caf team of the year at the Caf awards held in the capital city of Nigeria, Abuja, on Thursday night.
Suitors are always watching. They came from Greece in the form of Olympiacos and the French connection of Montpellier, both bearing a bounty of R14-million.
Way too little, they were waved away.
But the offers were R1.5-million above the R12.5-million European buyout clause.
Downs are well within reason in demanding a figure they deem appropriate for their hot property.
They feel they have a right to scoff at it, especially if you remember that Thulani Serero left Ajax Cape Town for their principal Amsterdam club for R25-million without a Premier Soccer League and Champions League medal dangling on his neck.
What, however, is a gross absurdity is Sundowns penalising Dolly for a fault he didn’t commit.
Feeling aggrieved, and damn rightfully so, Dolly took the matter to the Premier Soccer League’s dispute resolution chamber (DRC).
He came a cropper as the DRC ruled in favour of Downs.
Dolly is already paying a heavy price as the DRC outcome left him R200 000 poorer.
He will have to fork out R23 000 if he wants to appeal against the matter with the South African Football Association.
This sorry state of affairs of “mistakenly” dabbling with a player’s contract by people who should know better grates my pancreas.
Curiously, Sundowns have upgraded from mysteriously to mistakenly.
In 2007, they had a player named Jose Torrealba in their books.
When the contract of the man from Venezuela was approaching its conclusion, he was aghast to learn that he had mysteriously extended his contract by two years.
No, I didn’t, the diminutive Venezuelan protested profusely, adding that even the signature on that document was not his. Yes you did, charged the club. “The problem is that his agent does not speak English.
“He thought the contract expires on June 30 and was not aware that we have the option to renew,” explained then Sundowns executive director Afzal Khan.
To cut a long story short, Sundowns were proven to be in the wrong in the DRC.
Handwriting experts concurred with Torrealba. The signature the club claimed was Torrealba’s was actually not his.
Furthermore, the agent who could not speak English could thankfully read numbers.
The said agent noticed that on the date and time Torrealba supposedly signed a two-year extension, the player was actually flying!
Massive egg on the club’s face as evidence emerged that their story was an immaculate version of a fertile imagination.
If Dolly wants to go and the suitors meet the asking prize, set him free.
And if Dolly is not ready to go to Europe, that is his baby and it is not the club’s duty to stall him.
Downs have lost Elias Pelembe, Katlego Mphela and recently Bongani Zungu.
Guess what, the sun still shone brightly at Chloorkop.
Of course to err is human and man is erratic by nature. But honourable people own up to their mistake and do the right thing.
The right thing in this instance, would be to set the player free. This whole Keagan thing is not “Double Dolly” [not right]. Forgive my manners, complications of the new revolution and so on and so forth.
May your team perform much better in this 2017 season than they did in 2016. And may Bafana Bafana win the Africa Cup of Nations, on playstation of course.