Orlando Pirates management is still establishing the facts of what transpired at the Cape Town International airport after a video surfaced of a bust-up when the club was making its way back to Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Eye Witness News (EWN) reported that Pirates' coach Muhsin Ertugral and defender Edwin Gyimah had an altercation at the airport to a point that the police intervened. The police can be heard on the video threatening the player of arresting him for assault should he not behave. His teammates calmed him down while the temperamental coach left the scene. This happened a day after the Buccaneers made it two wins in their first two Absa Premiership matches. Gyimah was substituted at halftime, replaced by Thembela Sikhakhane, in the 2-1 win over Ajax Cape Town on Tuesday.
“We need to establish the facts first,” Pirates football administrator Floyd Mbele, said. “We can’t start casting aspersions without establishing the whole story. We will get reports from those who were there, the team management and then take the matter forward. It’s still unclear what happened, so before we can go anywhere we need to establish the whole story first.”
The incident came just as the Buccaneers looked to have bounced back from their MTN8 elimination by Bidvest Wits in the quarterfinals to register a 100% start in the league. But Mbele doesn’t think that it will take away from their good start nor have an impact on the club’s performance going forward.
“People are attracted to controversy,” he said. “This doesn’t take away from the fact that we have had a good start in the league.”
Mbele said it’s too early to be asking about a time-frame of when they would like to resolve the matter because it hasn’t been that long since it happened.
Independent Media