Township Rollers says NO ....will not accede owner's demands for full control
It is alleged that Township Rollers Football Club turned down their outgoing president and financier Jagdish Shah's request to change Rollers from a society to a company fully owned by him(Shah). Just after the club’s board emergency meeting on the 18 March 2023, TRFC board’s response to Shah’s letter of demands was that the club is not intending to dissolve the society any time soon.
According to sources close to the team hierarchy, Rollers was very clear with Shah that they cannot give him 100% ownership of the team, if he still wants to continue with the team. “We wrote a letter telling him that he should forget about his desires, and we demanded the letter to be responded to within two days of which he did. His response was that if the society is not dissolved his notice stands as it is and he will start the process that comes with resigning when he comes back from India,” source revealed.
The source went on to explain that his resignation does not only come with his demands, but there are also some other things he has to settle with the team because he was fully in charge of the team’s finances. “For him to go, there’s a process to be followed, he has to pay all the club’s debts because he was running the team; so we expect him to finish paying players that he signed. In the beginning, we signed a contract with him to take care of all the financial needs of the team therefore whatever obligation will be on him,” he said.
The same source said that the board had a meeting on Monday 27th March which did not end well because some members wanted to surrender the club to Shah, fearing that the team might not survive without his service.
However, in 2016 when Shah was voted to lead township Rollers, the former chairman of Township Rollers Football Club, Walter Kgabung, was the head of the faction that wanted to see the investor take over the club. In a recently leaked letter from Shah’s dated 27th February 2023, he writes: “we had agreed that by now, the society would have been de-registered, with the supporters' body assuming a different identity and that has not happened.”
Furthermore, the sources said that going forward the team will find a way to moderate the cost and skill its resources in order to survive until they find a financer. “It is evident that he laid a high standard for the team since it came under him, the team’s expenditure was around P300K plus per month, housing at P100k for players, P30K was reserved for the stadium while the salaries were around P196k, so it’s up to us now to find a temporary solution,” the source added.
Meanwhile, Bafana Pheto was appointed by the club executive committee on Monday as chairman of the club after Kgabung resigned from his role effective March 31st, 2023.