Senong reveals he is still owed money by Tanzanian club
'Our lawyers are currently working on it because the club has really delayed a lot of issues,' said Senong.
Thabo Senong says he is still owed money by Singida Fountain Gate. Picture: PressFocus/MB Media/Getty Images)
Former Bafana Bafana assistant coach Thabo Senong has opened up about his time in Tanzania and non-payment of salaries at Singida Fountain Gate.
Senong initially left South Africa to work under German coach Ernst Middendorp who resigned to take up the post at struggling DStv Premiership side Cape Town Spurs in November last year.
The former Amajita coach was later given the job after Fountain Gate sacked Brazilian manager Ricardo Ferreira. The embattled club recently parted ways with Senong as well as fitness trainer Kelvin Dlomo.
“The club went through some changes during December last year. There were major transitions with the president of the club moving to another club in the Premier League in Tanzania,” Senong said to Thabiso Mosia on Radio 2000.
“The entire management, like CEO and advocate of the club also moved to another club. Seven players of Singida moved to another club called Ihefu FC so when we restarted in January after the AFCON it was a major transition
“There were always financial challenges regarding paying foreign players and foreign staff. We started encountering challenges regarding that and we didn’t get our January, February and March salaries when the contracts were terminated.”
With all the challenges Senong and Dlomo faced in East Africa, he refutes claims that they were stuck in Dar es Salaam for two weeks after their relationship with the club ended on a sour note.
‘We needed to stay’
“It’s not really true because we still needed to stay in the country because there were other logistics that needed to happen,” he explained.
“We always had our flight tickets but there were other matters that needed to be addressed with regards to our exit at the club Singida Fountain Gate – some of the settlements and money owed to us. You don’t want to leave the country and receive payments and then you find it hard with the facilitation of the banking system domestically.
“We had to wait a little bit so that we could try to sort out everything at the club before we came back home. Our lawyers are currently working on it because the club has really delayed a lot of issues. They didn’t settle …. what was owed so we are still waiting and we decided that it’s better to go home while we wait.”
