JOHANNESBURG - Jomo Sono has rubbished accusations that he regularly fails to play his players on time, saying the claims are part of a "plan to destabilise" his team.
According to the South African Players’ Union (Safpu), the Jomo Cosmos boss has inconvenienced his players by continuously paying them late
“The players are suppose to be paid on the last day of every month but Cosmos players got paid today (Tuesday),” claimed Safpu’s General Secretary Nhlanhla Shabalala. “And this was last month’s salary. This has been going on for a while. Some of the players were not paid at all last month.”
However, Sono said there was no truth to the rumours and claimed there is a conspiracy against his team.
“I don’t know anything about what you are asking me. We are playing on Sunday and all the players will be there. You can come to training and all the players will be there. If they are not paid why are they still coming to training?” he said.
“This is a strategy to destabilise my team. They did the same thing when they accused me of playing an improperly registered player from Namibia.”
Yet no less than two players corroborated Safpu’s allegations, albeit on condition of anonymity as they feared victimisation.
“Yes there’s is a problem when it comes to our salary. We don’t get our money on time. We only got paid today. We were supposed to get paid at the end of the last month.. It is the first time this has happened to me but other players also faced the same problem last month,” said one player.
Another one claimed he was asked to share his salary with a teammate.
“Yes we got paid today (Tuesday). I was given a cheque and I was told to give half of my salary to my teammate. This is very bad because we have responsibilities to fulfil. Our families are dependent on us,” he said.
Despite his saying all was well at his club, Sono went on to essentially acknowledged the delays in payments.
“Yes it does happen where the employees are getting paid two or three days after their actual pay day. It happens to all the businesses all over the world. There can be delays at the bank,” Sono explained.
Cosmos have been trying to gain promotion back to the Premiership where clubs enjoy not only the benefits of a hefty monthly grant but also have the opportunity to fill up their coffers via the knockout competitions.
They've had a good start to the season and are third on the table with 17 points from 10 matches. They trail leaders Highlands Park by two points.