Black Leopards boss David Thidiela has levelled serious allegations against PSL chairman Irvin Khoza, accusing him of dictatorial leadership within the league and blaming him for the club’s initial ban this season.
Thidiela claims the PSL informed his club that they were unable to register players at the start of the season due to a FIFA ban. However, he says the league’s mother body was unable to present any written confirmation from FIFA verifying the ban, saying the matter was still being investigated by the world’s football mother-body.
Black Leopards were forced to play four league matches without their newly signed players and even had to deploy defender Thendo Mukumela in goal.
Thidiela revealed that FIFA only confirmed the club’s ban on 9 October and has since blamed PSL chairman Irvin Khoza and CEO Mato Madlala for the “initial ban”, calling for those four matches to be replayed.
“At the beginning of the season, we sent our people to register players, after that, when they were about to leave PSL offices, they were told that ‘your club has been banned’,” said Thidiela during the interview with Thabiso Mosioa on Gameon on Radio 2000.
“I said to what is happening? I demanded a letter for the ban, and what was the ban about? Nothing came. We were told to bring the cards back. I wasn’t even expecting to get the letter for the ban because our football is not run properly, I’m sorry to say.
“What happened, we said ‘Who banned us?’. They said, ‘It’s FIFA.’ But there was no letter. We played with Tendo Mukumela as a goalkeeper, we lost two and we drew two.
“When we wrote to FIFA, they said to us they were still investing the All Stars matter and they didn’t have Black Leopards in the list of banned clubs.
“When PSL banned us, when Irvin and Mato banned us, Black Leopards were not banned.”
According to Thidiela, the rift between himself and Irvin Khoza goes deeper than football matters, hinting that their conflict may be personal.
“Since I was in football, myself and Irvin don’t see eye to eye. I can’t [count] how many times he suspended me, with commission of crime, enquiry, what I stole, this and that, they want me out of football,” he continued.
“I met Irvin when I was a cop, a straightforward cop who doesn’t take a bribe. So, Irvin was Irvin. I was brought to football because there were people like Irvin.
“I came and helped football to grow, that’s where differences between us came from. And after resigning from the police, I thought he then felt ‘Now, I’ve got the man’.
“If it wasn’t for Irvin and Mato [Madlala], the club [Black Leopards] would have been big. I’m the man who doesn’t say, ‘Boss’. I’m not used to that. I do my own and I don’t beg anybody for anything, everything I have, I worked for.”
Further, Thidiela asserted that the league is operated solely by Irvin Khoza, describing him as a dictatorial figure who maintains absolute control.
“This league is run by Irvin Khoza alone, it’s his, he’s a dictator this guy,” he claimed.
“He dictates on my money, I’m a shareholder, equal to him and far as shareholders of the league are concerned.
“I’m not happy with it and he knows that. I was against this [league chairman being the club’s owner] and till today I’m still against it.
“I’ve served under so many chairmen in the league, I’ve never seen a chairman with such power. He’s got more power than Cyril Ramaphosa. In this league, you say yes to Irvin or you are out.”