SuperSport CEO Matthews defends selling policy to local rivals

Selling their most prized assets to DStv Premiership rivals and abroad will always be SuperSport United‘s business model, that’s according to club CEO Stan Matthews.

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Thapelo Maseko and Patrick Maswanganyi are the latest stars to depart United to Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates respectively.

For a club looking to challenge for league honours, Matsatsantsa a Pitori have certainly aided their rivals ahead of the new season.

Matthews defended their policy and explained why it’s hard to turn down lucrative offers, particularly from their Tshwane rivals Sundowns who have in the past also paid a top fee for the likes of Aubrey Modiba, Teboho Mokoena, Ronwen Williams and Sipho Mbule.

“When I let go of Ronwen (Williams) a year ago, everyone said ‘how can you let go of your captain and your longest serving player?’ but I let him go and we finished third. Ronwen was my goalkeeper for nine years and I never finished in the top three once,” Matthews said.

“It’s not about individuals but what we need as a team and what I need to do to make the team more competitive. You can say I’m grooming for my rivals and South African football but the most important thing is that I’m grooming for the club because the resources we managed to get from those two deals abled me to get Pfumbidzai, Hamza, Magerman, Ndlovu, Dzvukamanja, Nange, Ighodaro.

“Now is the team stronger with those seven players than the two I let go? Yes, the team is stronger, I have more depth, experience and players that I own so I think we have moved the club forward. 

“It would have been stunning to keep Maseko for another year and I wanted to keep him for another year. If you ask me if it was a good move for Maseko, I don’t think it was a good move for him. I told him that I don’t think it’s a good move because I don’t think he will get the game time at Sundowns that he got here but the player has to look at his life and say how does this contract change his life and it changed his life to a really good extent for him and his family. It also changed my club to a huge extent to be able to bring in seven players on the back of that.”

It was an open secret that Belgian topflight outfit K.V.C. Westerlo were also interested in the talented Maseko but the financial muscle of the Brazilians proved to be the difference.

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“Westerlo was there, but they would not have paid Maseko what Sundowns are paying him. The money that I got from Sundowns was honestly marginally better than Westerlo, not greatly better than them,” Matthews revealed.

“I would have preferred a Westerlo deal because with them I keep the 15% of the onward sale and if you look at Lyle Foster’s trajectory, he’s worth 10 million and a player like Maseko could be worth 12 million Euros and 15% of that could be 30 odd million rand. At the end of the day, each player has to look at his own situation. I told him that if he goes to Sundowns, he won’t get sold. Barcelona can come for you, they are not going to sell you, they don’t need the money. It doesn’t matter who comes for him, he belongs to Sundowns and they are powerful enough to keep whatever they want.”