Chippa United CEO, Siviwe Chippa Mpengesi, has claimed that he turned down a bid from their rivals, Kaizer Chiefs, for Super Eagles goalkeeper, Stanley Nwabali, because their bid was too low.
Following a fine outing at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, Nwabali was linked with a move to several clubs abroad.
However, he was also a transfer target for PSL side, Kaizer Chiefs.
A move for the former Enyimba International man didn’t materialize as he put pen to paper with the Chilli Boys, signing an improved three-year deal that’ll see him become the club captain.
Kaizer Chiefs, on the other hand, ended up signing Rwanda goalkeeper, Fiacre Ntwali from TS Galaxy. The Rwandan number one was a force to reckon with in his side’s clash against the Super Eagles, making a total of nine saves against Eguavoen’s team as both teams played out a stalemate.
Chippa chairman, Siviwe Mpengesi, revealed Nwabali could have made the move to Kaizer Chiefs but the 28-year-old was valued less than Ntwali in what could have been a good deal for the Soweto giants.
“It was never about the price, there were two teams who were interested, one of them was AmaZulu, but they were offering peanuts,” Mpengesi told KickOff.
“There were talks that we had with Kaizer Chiefs before the end of the season. But then we saw Kaizer Chiefs signing another goalkeeper. For Kaizer Chiefs, we were even gonna give them, and the price was not even that high. We were more looking at the interest of the player you know, he was going to play for a big club, because I mean AmaZulu and Chippa are almost the same WhatsApp group, and you still get peanuts.”
“In their judgment, the Galaxy keeper is better than our keeper, which is something where I’m sitting, I dispute, but that’s water under the bridge. It has nothing to do with value, any offer we would have taken into consideration, but I mean what AmaZulu were offering was peanuts; they wanted us to give them Nwabali and Eva Nga for peanuts. That was a disrespect,” Mpengesi concluded.
