OPINION – Time for Mokwena and Ramovic to turn mud-slinging into mud-wrestling!

Say what you like about how petty the current squabble is between Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Rulani Mokwena and TS Galaxy head coach Sead Ramovic, would we really want it any other way?

The well-worn cliches drummed out at press conferences can be desperately dull.

“I’m confident we can rise to the occasion.”

“We will do our best to win.”

“It’s back to the drawing board.”

Give me Ramovic’s extraordinary outburst at this week’s Nedbank Cup press conference any day!

The Serbian wasn’t even at the PSL headquarters to talk about Sundowns. He was supposed to be previewing Friday’s Nedbank Cup last 32 match against Golden Arrows.

But off he went.

Mokwena had called him in December, according to Ramovic, and poured a cacophony of expletives down the blower.

“He entertained me with a lot of nonsense.” said Ramovic.

He said ‘who the fuck are you to come to my country and talk to me like this? Do you know who my parents are (Mokwena’s father is former Pirates player Julius KK Sono)? Be careful how you talk, because you are in my fucking country.’

“I told him ‘I don’t care who your parents are and then he hung up the phone … I was very disappointed, because I think to get treated by a colleague like this, it is very small minded talk.”

Mokwena is clearly not about to admit he said this, even if he did.

The Sundowns head coach took to Twitter, re-posting a comment from the Sharpeville branch of the Sundowns supporters club.

“Sead Ramovic has an obsession with Rulani,” reads the tweet.

“He attacked Rulani in public like a jealous girlfriend and expects us to believe what he said earlier is true. In fact, it’s not an obsession, it’s envy. Envy is a dangerous thing.”

If Rulani did say what Ramovic claims, it’s xenophobic and vicious and frankly pathetic. If Ramovic is lying, it’s equally pathetic. But what drama!

It’s been going on all season, at least ever since Mokwena had the temerity to blame Sundowns’ Carling Black Label Knockout defeat to Galaxy on his Bafana absentees. It is certainly rich for the head coach of by far the most well-resourced side in the country to talk about absentees.

And Ramovic pointed this out, adding that Mokwena was insulting his own players and Galaxy’s players by taking this stance.

There is surely only one way to sort this out. Get Mokwena and Ramovic in a boxing ring and let them slug it out. Or better yet, let them sling some real mud. Stick them both in a leotard and have them roll around in a mud-wrestling ring.

The Serbian Slayer against Soweto Slugger. Get Dricus Du Plessis in to train them. Talk about good television. Who’s in?