BB say signing-on fees from Nyasa is a loan

Nyasa Big Bullets FC has said the K42 million offered by their sponsors Nyasa Manufacturing Company (NMC) to settle the players’ signing-on fees, will be in a form of a loan o the club.

The club’s interim chairperson Noel Lipipa said this yesterday during a news conference held in Blantyre.

He said the loan will be recovered over a four-year period from the K500 million sponsorship.

“It is a mess that was created by poor planning on the part of the previous leadership when they applied a wrong recruitment process. But then we cannot cry over split milk, we had to come up with a way of cleaning the mess.

“We were spending beyond our means by offering players exorbitant signing-on fees and salaries that we could not sustain. Obviously, when we landed sponsorship, it was imperative that the players’ salaries should be reviewed, but not excessively.

“Ironically, that was the genesis of the fallout [in the executive committee] when some of us questioned the logic in the move,” said Lipipa.

He also faulted the previous leadership for giving some players signing-on fees at the expense of others, a move which he claimed created disgruntlement on the part of some players.

“It was not a healthy situation at all and it is imperative that we correct it.”

However, Lipipa said although the team will continue to struggle financially, the club will not reduce players’ salaries.

“Cash flow problems will be there. We will just have to find a way to sustain our budget, but we cannot reduce players’ salaries. We cannot correct a wrong with another wrong,” he said.

The club’s general secretary Kelvin Moyo, who was the acting general secretary in the previous committee, admitted in an interview that they overlooked the effects of offering players substantial salaries and signing-on fees.

NMC board chairperson Konrad Buckle hailed Lipipa, saying they were happy with his vision of how to run the club.

“The first thing was to accept that there is a problem and then come up with a workable solution and that is what he [Lipipa] did by negotiating for the loan. It shows that he clearly knows what he is doing,” he said.

Buckle also dismissed reports circulating on social media that by offering to pay the players’ signing-on fees, they would take over ownership of the team.

“While it is clear that the needs of the club way exceed the income, there has been no intention whatsoever to take over ownership. In fact, this suggestion about us taking over ownership first came from the previous executive and our response was clear that it should come from the trustees,” he said.