Former Bloemfontein Celtic owner Jimmy Augousti says his family sold the club to Max Tshabalala after unbearable political interference and sabotage from powerful people in the Free State.
The charismatic Augousti, who is profoundly saddened that professional football in the province is in the doldrums, said he became fed up with powerful and connected people who were trying to hijack the club.
The sale of Celtic by the Augoustis to Free State businessperson Tshabalala in August 2014 was a deal shrouded in secrecy, and speculation that a prominent politician from the province was the true figure behind it never went away. Tshabalala had financial troubles and after a few years of battling to pay players and club officials, he sold the club to Shauwn Mkhize in 2021, who moved it to KwaZulu-Natal and formed Royal AM.
The demise of Celtic, whose passionate supporters won admirers across the country, is one of the sad stories of modern South African football. Much of the work building that fan-base was done by the Agousti family when they bought the club from Petrus “Whitehead” Molemela, who owned it from the early 1980s, then sold after Celtic's relegation from the Premier Soccer League in 2001.
Former Celtic player Augousti had a reputation as being outspoken and was larger than life in his lifestyle, but his passion for Celtic was appreciated by the people of Bloemfontein and the Free State.
“You get to a point where you decide it’s time to pack your bags and leave the dance floor,” Augousti said in an interview with TimesLIVE Premium, asked about his decision to sell Celtic just under a decade ago.
“For us to have reached that point [of deciding to sell], we were fed up. We had a fantastic relationship with Siwelele supporters and the man on the street, but there were certain political entities in the province that wanted to hijack the club.
“They had the system and power at their disposal and every five or six months some or other obstacle would come up. After about 10 years in the PSL, we sat down as a family and agreed it was no longer about football.
“We found ourselves having to manage situations that had nothing to do with football to keep the stable. All we wanted was to compete against other clubs in the PSL and not against our own government in our own backyard. It is sad and I am not going to lie about it.”
Augousti said he doesn’t understand why the club struggled under Tshabalala because he left it on a good financial footing.
“When I sold the club to Max, there was still 18 months left on the MTN sponsorship on the [jersey] front and B3 Funerals on the sleeve that still two years to run. So he had two sponsors and the PSL grant — there was no reason they could have financial problems.”
He said Celtic was worth a lot of money when he sold it to Tshabalala.
“In my opinion, Celtic was worth about R65m at the time [2014], but we let it go for R45m with two running sponsors in MTN and B3 Funerals. All the factors were there for it to continue to be successful, but behind the scenes there was chaos.
“It was a heartbreaking decision to sell it because when we took over the club they had 12 players, four soccer balls, they were training on gravel in a car park and they didn’t even have a set of jerseys.
“I bought Celtic from Ntate Dr Petrus Molemela for R600,000 while it was in the National First Division in 2001 and at that time the grant from the PSL was R12,000 a month. We agreed on [a price of] R600,000 and that I would also settle the outstanding salaries that he had,” explained Augousti, whose highlights with Celtic include winning the SAA Supa8, Iwisa Charity Spectacular and Telkom Knockout.
The sales of Celtic and relegation in 2019, then the sale in 2022 of Bethlehem and Qwa-Qwa-based Free State Stars left no team in the PSL in the Free State. Augousti said this is a huge blow for youthful, aspiring footballers from the province who were left with no reference point and something to aspire to, and to businesses who benefited from top flight matches in the province.
“The state of football in the province is very sad, our football has gone backwards. Let’s just go back to the era of the 2010 World Cup where football was buzzing and had the attention of the public.
“We had two clubs in the PSL in the form of Free State Stars and Bloemfontein Celtic and we all know what the standing of those clubs were in their communities. They were not just fly-by-night brands but they had been entrenched in their communities for many years.”
Professional football has returned to Bloemfontein this season with Marumo Gallants, after buying the Premiership status of Moroka Swallows, having relocated from Limpopo to the City of Roses. Augousti has cautioned that even though Gallants’ move is welcomed, it is going to take time for locals to warm to a club that was not formed in the province.
“There is no Free State Stars and there is no Bloemfontein Celtic, there was no replacement until Marumo Gallants stepped in and we don’t have a team in the Motsepe Foundation Championship [second tier].
“Before Marumo Gallants moved the club to Bloemfontein, the highest representation we had was in the ABC Motsepe League [third tier] which is amateur football. So professional football is in a bad state in the Free State.
“How do you inspire kids that there are opportunities in football but there is no local reference point? We are losing youngsters — there is a whole negative knock-on effect in the long run.
“There are some guys in the ABC Motsepe League like D’General FC and Mangaung United who are trying, but professionally we are in a worse situation than it’s ever been.”
Asked what went wrong for Stars and Celtic, Augousti said it was a combination of factors.
“I can’t speak much on how Stars was run under Ntate Mike Mokoena or Celtic under Max Tshabalala. But I think at Stars, once Ntate Mike Mokoena passed on, I am not sure if his sons had the same passion for it because that team was Mike Mokoena’s baby and they have always been a mainstay in the PSL.
“When it comes to Celtic, there are a lot of things that went wrong. There was political interference in the background that eventually led to the sale of the club. I also don’t think Max looked after the club well.
“I don’t think he put in enough resources. He got into the space and within a short space of time he ran into some financial problems. For the first time you heard Celtic players were going on strike because they had not been paid their salaries.”
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