CAPS United President Apologises For Players' Behaviour
CAPS United president Farai Jere has apologised to the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and other football stakeholders after the Sunday fiasco.
CAPS United players staged a protest on Sunday over unpaid winning bonuses, forcing their league match against Cranborne Bullets at the National Sports Stadium to be delayed by 45 minutes.
Speaking to H-Metro on Monday, Jere also criticised the players who are thought to have influenced the rest of the squad to stage the protest. Said, Jere:
Firstly, as CAPS United, we would like to apologise to the entire league, our opponents Cranborne Bullets, our fans and partners, our league sponsors and everyone connected with our PSL for the unfortunate events on Sunday in which our club was involved.
As CAPS United, it has always been our intention to project ourselves as a club which is moving in the right direction and, while there will always be challenges, like in any field, we believe we can resolve our challenges in a better way than what happened on Sunday.
For the avoidance of doubt, what happened on Sunday was unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in any way because the issues at hand should never have resulted in a standoff in which we ended up almost forcing the abandonment of the match.
I want to put it on record that we owed the players outstanding payments for bonuses for two matches which they had won and we promised to pay those amounts and, as I am speaking to you, we have delivered on that promise and paid the amounts today (yesterday).
What is really the difference between being paid on Sunday and Monday and can that really justify the actions of a few bad apples who influenced some of their teammates to try and force the abandonment of the game, without considering the fans, the sponsors and the opponents?
Are we the only club which owes its players in terms of settlement of winning bonuses?
Definitely, we are not, and there are other clubs, who are doing better than us, and they owe their players a lot but, unlike some of our boys, the players at those clubs are committed to what they are doing and what they want to achieve.
Makepekepe has since sacked five players whom they claim were the ringleaders. The five are Ronald Chitiyo, Rodwell Chinyengetere, Clive Augusto, Denis Dauda and Devon Chafa.
