Chippa United’s CEO, Siviwe Chippa Mpengesi has disclosed that he turned down an offer from Kaizer Chiefs for Super Eagles goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali, citing the bid as being too low.
Nwabali attracted interest from clubs abroad and locally, with PSL giants Kaizer Chiefs among the potential suitors, following the goalkeeper’s performance last season.
However, the 28 year-old ultimately signed a new three-year deal with Chippa United, where he will also take on the role of club captain.
Kaizer Chiefs decided to shift their interest and opted to sign Rwanda’s number one, Fiacre Ntwali, from TS Galaxy.
Mpengesi shed light on why Nwabali’s move to Kaizer Chiefs didn’t happen, explaining that the Chiefs didn’t value him as highly as Ntwali.
“It was never about the price; there were two teams who were interested, one of them was AmaZulu, but they were offering peanuts.”
“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 [Nwabali], 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.”
“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.”
Mpengesi also criticized AmaZulu’s offer for Nwabali, which included an attempt to acquire Chippa United forward Eva Nga as part of the deal.
“AmaZulu were offering peanuts; they wanted us to give them Nwabali and Eva Nga for peanuts. That was a disrespect.”
Nwabali, fresh from keeping two clean sheets for Nigeria during the September international break, is in excellent form heading into the upcoming PSL season.
