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Tadious Manyepo-Sports Reporter
THE player exodus that hit Castle Lager Premiership side Triangle United over the past two seasons came about after the team refused to pay the players’ signing-on fees, arguing they were compensating for the salaries received during the Covid-19 era, The Herald has learnt.
The Lowveld team continued to pay their players, just like most of the teams in the top-flight league and in the lower divisions, in 2020 and 2021 when football activities had been put on hold due to the coronavirus menace.
However, the team wouldn’t pay the players their signing on fees at the start of 2021 and last season resulting in most of them deserting the club. Only about three players from Triangle’s 2021 Chibuku Super Cup squad remained with the team with the rest leaving in a rather puzzling development.
Even their technical department led by Taurai Mangwiro left the club with Jairos Tapera roped in to rebuild the team virtually from zero. While some of the players who left no longer had contracts with the 2018 Chibuku Super Cup champions, some decided to exit due to the disgruntlement over non-payment of their sign-on fees.
Several former Triangle United players who spoke to The Herald this week said they felt undermined by the system and decided to leave.
“We were getting our salaries in 2020 when there was no football due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It was something we agreed to after the intervention of some external actors, of course.
“But the problem started when they then said they wouldn’t be able to give us our yearly sign-on fees because they were giving us salaries at a time when we were not playing football,” said one of the players.
“We tried hard to negotiate with them through chairman Lovemore Matikinyidze but nothing materialised. We were frustrated left, right and centre. It was very painful because that’s not what we had agreed.
“At the end of the day, we just agreed with others that we would leave the team because they were not sincere with us. Of course, they were paying us salaries but we didn’t agree that the payment would replace our sign-on fees, which are clearly stated in our contracts.
“That was a blow for us and we felt useless. For me, I just felt that I wasn’t needed at the club and I decided to leave”.
Another player said Matikinyidze was blocking them from talking to superiors.
“To be honest, being told to adjust to something which we had not agreed pushed me out of the Triangle United system. Some of us were told by the chairman that the hierarchy had agreed to pay us salaries during the Covid-19 era on condition that we wouldn’t be given our sign-on fees,” he said.
“It came as a surprise to some of us because we were not aware of that arrangement. We were only told so when we were asking for the sign-on fees at the beginning of 2021. We tried to get some explanation from other superiors but Matikinyidze blocked us.
“We just resolved that we would leave the team and at the end that is what we did. Otherwise we wanted to stay at Triangle United as we had agreed as players to stay put and try to fight for the championship last year”.
Matikinyidze refused to entertain questions from this publication, referring all correspondence to club spokesperson Wendy Tinarwo, who typically had not responded by the time of going to print.
The club is currently under the spotlight after paying their playing staff around US$11 for the month of May.
At least five players have not received their salaries which they have been told were wiped by “tax”. The club has since instituted investigations to find the “culprits” who leaked the information to the media.
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