Shame! Muhammad Sulumba’s Polokwane City move hits the wall

…player sent back home

Muhammad Sulumba’s Polokwane City move is off following Nyasa Big Bullets’ failure to clear him before the deadline day of International transfers, Malawi24 can reveal.

According to information sourced by this publication, Bullets failed to clear the player before the window was shut on Wednesday because of a disagreement between the former Sam Chilunga led executive committee and the current Noel Lipipa led executive committee.

According to the Football Association of Malawi (FAM), Chilunga invaded its offices at Mpira Village where he demanded for the clearance of the player but the FA through Transfer System Manager Casper Jangale refused to have the player cleared saying only the current executive committee was allowed to clear the player.

When Bullets General Secretary Kelvin Moyo together with some club officials arrived at FAM offices to clear the player, they were shocked to hear that the Premier Soccer League side had already made an advanced payment of K3.8 million (almost ZAR 70 000) to Bullets and that only a balance of K8 million was remaining for Sulumba to complete his ‘dream’ move.

This did not go well with Moyo who told City to provide valid documents to Bullets to show that the transaction indeed took place but the PSL side refused to bow down to this request by insisting that part of Sulumba’s transfer fee was pocketed by Bullets.

By then, only few hours were remaining on the clock before the window was shut and with Bullets keeping their counterparts waiting, Sulumba’s dream move came to an end as City got pissed off and officials from the South African club stopped picking up calls till the window was officially shut down at exactly 12 midnight.

“We did everything in our power to have him cleared by seeking clarification on the said amount that our friends are claiming to have paid us but it seems they got pissed off and stopped picking up our calls till the window was shut down.”

“As General Secretary for the club, I am very disappointed with what has happened and I am feeling sorry for Muhammad Sulumba who deserved this opportunity to play professional football. The whole mess was created by the former committee because if there was indeed a transaction between the two sides, they never bothered to inform us,” said Kelvin Moyo.

On his part, Jangale confirmed that he refused to clear the player under Chilunga’s order.

“We refused to clear the player because Sam Chilunga had no mandate to demand for his clearance because he is not the one serving Big Bullets. The FA could have landed in a hot soup if the player was cleared and we did our level best to clear him before the window was shut down but it was too late,” he said.

Sulumba, who was given a wok permit by the South African government last week, left in tears when he was being updated about the change of events regarding his future. The player’ dream of playing proffessional football is over for the second time within two years and is set to return to Malawi today.

When he was at Mighty Wanderers, he signed a contract with Jomo Cosmos, only to be offloaded in the last minute due to PSL’s foreign quota policy.

Efforts to speak to Chilunga proved futile as his phone went an answered as we went to press.