What the Siya crew has been told…

On August 31, in edition 1289 of Soccer Laduma, the Siya crew broke the news of the contractual stand-off between Kaizer Chiefs and Njabulo Blom’s camp. The sit-uation appears to be a sensitive issue that has left all parties involved increasingly frustrated.

According to well-placed sources, the club feel aggrieved because they provided Blom with an opportunity to turn out for one of the biggest clubs on the continent, while the player’s camp feel that the player needs to be adequately remunerated considering his telling contribution to the club in relation to some of his teammates.

As the stand-off between the Dobsonville-born star and the Naturenabased side continues, Soccer Laduma has been informed that the relationship between the player and the coach has been left severely strained as insiders indicated that Ar-thur Zwane took matters into his own hands by confronting Blom in front of his teammates to address the matter.

According to the insiders, Zwane had a full go at the player for his stance on the matter, which stunned some of the playing squad.

The insiders have suggested that Zwane felt betrayed by the player, with whom he shares a close relationship stemming from their time together in the club’s devel-opment as well as the DStv Diski Challenge side, where Blom was later promoted to the first team in 2019 under then coach Ernst Middendorp, with Zwane playing a key role in his promotion.

According to the insiders, the head coach’s main concern is that the player is not acting out of his own accord and that his mind has been infiltrated by his agents, rather than repaying the club for the massive role they have played in him becom-ing a household name in local football at the age of 22.

However, despite the unwanted situation, an independent insider has informed the Siya crew that the player has remained a model professional in training and, statis-tically, is often amongst the top performers in the club’s training sessions.

Indications are that the stand-off between Blom’s camp and Chiefs could continue well into the new year, where the pendulum will swing largely in the player’s favour as he would be able to sign a pre-contract with a team of his choice in the last six months of his deal.

Following the breaking news on August 31, the player’s representative, Rob Moore, commented on the player’s omission from the Chiefs squad on Metro FM’s Sports Night Amplified with Andile Ncube.

“Do you think a player with those kinds of stats last year, who has played for his country, do you think he suddenly overnight became a poor player with a bad atti-tude? Is that possible? Absolutely not.

“Anybody who knows Njabulo Blom will tell you he’s a humble, professional guy. I think this is more about, ‘Oh, you don’t wanna sign the contract, now you’ve got a bad attitude’. Kaizer Jnr, Dillon Sheppard, Arthur Zwane were all players in their day. Have they forgotten about the fact that when they were players, they also wanted their agents to stand up and get them a deal that they felt was at least mar-ket-related?” the top agent said, in part.