Rivalry runs bone-deep in Mother City derby

They say you can choose your friends but not your family. That is why the rivalry between Ajax Cape Town and Cape Town City goes well beyond bragging rights.

The two have had contrasting seasons, with City winning a Telkom Knockout trophy and still in contention for the league title in their maiden campaign.

Ajax have battled relegation and it has only been in the past few weeks that they have pulled away from the bottom.

The two have had some goodnatured sparring sessions on Twitter in recent weeks, too, with Ajax teasing City over the fact that this time last year the team was based in Mpumalanga and went by the name Black Aces.

It was one of a number of humorous exchanges on social media between the two sides. But while their marketing departments might be loving it up, there is undoubted ill-feeling between the clubs.

The reasons behind that are numerous, not least because of the people involved in the management of the clubs.

Ajax Cape Town was owned by Ajax Amsterdam (51%) and a consortium comprising the Comitis and Efstathiou families (49%).

The two families are linked through marriage, with the Ajax CEO Ari Efstathiou married to Poppy, sister of City owner John Comitis.

They also live in the same street in Cape Town and share other interests with the families having been intertwined in business for almost three decades.

The pair had a falling-out in 2010 over a R3.5-million payout that Comitis received for his role on the PSL's executive committee, with the Efstathious believing it should have gone to the club.

What followed was a couple of years of legal wrangling before it became clear that they could not work together at Ajax. One family had to go.

The Comitis family, made up of John and brother George, offered to buy out the Efstathious in 2013. But when the latter refused to sell, they were forced to accept a counterbid and so exited the club.

It was all pretty acrimonious, with John Comitis claiming his brother-in-law was leading a witch-hunt against him, and Ari Efstathiou saying it was merely a case of good governance.

Stuck in the middle is one of the grand gentlemen of South African football, John's father, Mike Comitis, who has the unenviable task of keeping the peace at Christmas lunch with daughter Poppy on the other side of the family divide.

John Comitis' re-entry into the local game via his purchase of the status of Mpumalanga Black Aces and the relocation of the club to Cape Town has reignited the rivalry once more.

On the pitch, however, the battles have been won by City, who claimed 1-0 and 2-0 successes in the league in what were feisty clashes that never boiled over.

- TMG Digital/TMG Sport