The TTM comedy that nobody is laughing at

Ialmost laughed when I read the sub-headline in a story on the PSL approving the sale of Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila (TTM) from Masala Mulaudzi to Dr Abram Sello on the Phakaaathi website on Thursday evening.

The sunheadline read: “End of farcial era as PSL approves TTM sale”.

I couldn’t laugh though, because the word “farcial” was so accurate in describing the whole TTM fiasco that I immediately sobered up to the reality of how cruel the whole thing has been.

At first, when the hurried sale of Bidvest Wits happened, it left a lot of people without jobs or hope.

I understood that adults could still try and find jobs elsewhere, but it was the youngsters in the Wits academy that worried me.

Those boys may be lost to the game forever becauseof Covid-19 threatening every industry like it has and the chances of them finding shelter at other teams are really slim.

Most clubs have cut squad sizes because they are forced to work on a shoe-string budget and we all know how many good, solid players came out of that academy.

Counting them now would however, be a waste of both time and ink.

The way the sale was handled was shameful, for lack of a stronger word and because I can’t use the “f-word” in a family publication.

But it really was a monumental bugger-up the way the sale happened.

Imagine reading in newspapers when you get to work that you are basically unemployed because as you sit in your chair having your morning coffee and catching up on the news, someone is outside taking the building apart.

That, in anutshell, is what happened.

We heard about the sale of Wits before Bra George Mogotsi, who was the club’s general manager and coach Gavin Hunt’s trusted right-hand-man.

That is how ridiculous, absurd, amusing and laughable the whole deal was.

And that it was so hurried and done under the table with no transparency is a matter to talk about on another day.

The sale was concluded in October and the team were shipped away, or were they ferried in a donkey cart?

The name changed to Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila, a name I asked three people from Venda if they knew what it meant, but as of today, I still don’t know, because all they could tell me was that it says something about a village.

Anyway I remain ignorant on that score, because I can’t speak or understand the language.

That’s just where all manner of blunders you can imagine, happened.

It started with the signing of two “expensive” players in Joseph Malongoane and Oupa Manyisa.

They were taken to every radio station they could find and paraded there, while we in the print media were told they “can’t speak to the media yet”.

That’s another mini gripe I had with them, but have since forgiven them because I realised that for them the club was a vehicle to drive them to fame, and newspapers were too old- fashioned for them - idiots!

But, just three months later, Mulaudzi has realised that instead of the club driving him to fame as he’d anticipated – I hear he once saw himself as the next Kaizer Motaung – it was taking him straight to bankruptcy at the speed of a supersonic jet.

One now hopes the good doctor who has come to the rescue of the club does much better than Mulaudzi – but who can do worse than Mulaudzi?

Dr Sello will have to hire credible, experienced football administrators if he wants to save the team from relegation.