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Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila (TTM) will play their MTN8 quarter-final match against SuperSport United at Thohoyandou Stadium on Saturday with a 14-man squad on match day as they have failed to register enough players.
Professional teams name 18 players to their teams for game day, including 11 in the starting lineup and seven on the bench, but TTM will only have three on the bench.
However, they will not violate any FIFA decision, as the global body’s regulations stipulate that a professional team can start a match with no fewer than seven players, including a goalkeeper.
“For today’s game against SuperSport United, we will have 14 players, who are 11 in the starting lineup and three on the bench,” said Seal Chokoe, CEO of TTM.
“I know people are going to criticize us but we started this team with only Brighton Mhlongo and Lehlohonolo Nonyane and we have worked very hard behind the scenes to be where we are right now.
“First, the most important thing for us was compliance so that this game can go ahead as planned and play to the end. You need a certain number of players to honor a match and we have multiple players who will be able to honor this match. “
Chokoe said that they are in this undesirable situation because their international players have not arrived in the country due to Covid-19 delays and the fact that they do not have a reserve team from the MDC.
“Like any other team, we have international players like [Venezuelan] Gustavo Paez and [Kenyan] Brian Onyango who has not yet arrived in the country for various reasons, ”said Chokoe.
“Páez has been traveling for about seven days and he was supposed to land in the country tomorrow but he is still stuck in Brazil because they want certain documents and today is the weekend.
“We also hired Onyango, who was recently in national service, but stayed home longer to arrange for his family to join him in South Africa. We could not do certain processes without him physically in SA.
TTM bought the Premier Division franchise from Bidvest Wits, and the GladAfrica Championship franchise from the Limpopo club was sold to a new team, Sekhukhune United. This has led to a number of contractual complications that need to be resolved on which players will play and where.
“There is also the problem of players related to Sekhukhune United,” said Chokoe.
“What we find is that there is uncertainty as to who should authorize those players to play in TTM, which was recently Bidvest Wits.
“We couldn’t risk registering those players without the league giving us clarity on whether Sekhukhune has released them. The players involved are about five.
“There are many things that contributed to this situation, for example there are other players who have been training with us but they have not convinced us yet to register them because we are still evaluating them and we do not want to sign. players in despair.
“The other problem is that of the MDC players. The MDC players who were with Wits are mostly students and they were unable to move in to be with us in Limpopo.
“If we already had an MDC team, we were going to pick four to five players for this game.”
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