Steve Komphela on how he convinced Swallows players to honour fixture against SuperSport

Moroka Swallows coach Steve Komphela says he had to convince striking Dube Birds players to honour their DStv Premiership fixture against SuperSport United on Friday.    

After they conceded two goals in a space of four minutes to throw away a 1-0 lead and lose the game 2-1, Komphela confirmed during his post-match press conference that his team had not trained for 10 days in the build-up to the match at Dobsonville Stadium due to issues at the club.    

Gabadihno Mhango had opened the scoring for the hosts after 69 minutes before Tendamudzimu Matodzi and Etiosa Ighodaro scored for SuperSport on 85 and 89 minutes, respectively.       

Though the mentor didn’t want to divulge the reasons behind players striking, there have been rumours the club has failed to pay them their salaries.    

“I tried to be part of the solution, I could have taken the easy decision to say ‘listen, I’m stepping outside this’, but do I help anybody?” Komphela said after the game.    

“Do I help these players? Do I help the team? No.    

“Now this was what was happening with us, every day you come to training. I’m there by 8am, 8.30am and whatever challenges we try to solve, and it doesn’t get solved, the players go back (without training).    

“We come again, on the next day, every day. You can go to my family and ask them, not even a single day I hadn’t been at work. They (my family) will also be shocked and surprised to hear that for 10 days you guys have not been training, but you have been leaving in the morning every day and coming back in the evening.   

“I do my job as a professional. For match day, I had to come here to Dobsonville Stadium for training. You come here to try to solve the problem and you can’t solve it, you go back home,” he said.    

“You are helpless, you can’t do anything because players tell you that ‘no, no we are not training'.”    

Komphela convinced the players to honour their fixture against SuperSport to protect the Premier Soccer League (PSL) brand from embarrassment and out of respect for people who love the beautiful game.    

“I had to send a voice note that everybody must report for duty and find a way because we cannot (miss the fixture),” Komphela said.    

“To be honest, it would have been bad if we didn’t honour the fixture or something worse than this happens.    

“OK, the result is bad, but do you want to tell me that we could have gone worse than this?    

“I think in the past there was a match where Santos got three points from us, and we didn’t honour the fixture. It happened in the past and it can’t happen again,” he said.    

“We need to respect the game and respect those who value the game. Part of that, you take a bashing trying to protect the game that everybody else tries to protect.    

“I could have taken an easy way out and said ‘No, no, no. Cancel the match or I’m not coming into the match’ but that’s an easy way out, try to solve the problem.    

“But where we are at, understandably so, it’s a culmination of what has been happening and honestly speaking you can’t hide this.”    

Over the past couple of years, Swallows have been reported to have cash flow issues and in May last year players went on strike over unpaid salaries.