Mokoena among those leaving as Swallows begin massive clear out

Swallows will only keep players who show hunger and a desire to fight for the badge as they want to trim the squad from 40 players last season to only 25 for the next term.

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And Phakaaathi has been informed that veteran midfielder Lebohang “Cheeseboy” Mokoena is among those who will be offloaded by the Soweto side. 

“Yeah, Lebo is unfortunately among those who might be chopped when the restructuring begins. He has served the club well and one would have liked to see him retire there.

“But it is the nature of football, players come and go and we saw it with Vuyo (Mere)… He also left when no one really saw it coming,” said a source. 

Mokoena captained the Dube Birds when they launched their come back and won automatic promotion to the DStv Premiership from the GladAfrica Championship two seasons ago. 

Speaking to SABC Sport earlier this week, Swallows chairman David Mogashoa confirmed that there will be a drastic pruning of the squad for next season.  

“From 40 players that we had last season, we are trimming down to 25 that are going to be hungry and fight for the badge, not for themselves. I believe if we trim down the squad we will be able to solve the problem,” Mogashoa is quoted as saying.

Swallows had some financial difficulties last season which led to some players not being paid. This according to club president Panyaza Lesufi was due to a lack of funds. 

He blamed the PSL for refusing their Telkom sponsorship which was said to be in conflict of interest with DStv. Mogashoa also alluded to financial issues being a major factor in their bad run last term.

“The biggest issue was that when we found out the sponsorship was not going to happen, we did not reduce the squad and we kept the same number of players, and it caught up with us.” 

On cutting the squad size, he said: “The job is already easy because we’ve got the trio that joined Chiefs, and then four players that we had a deal with Sundowns, who have a say on where they go.”