The woman who has been accused by Sonia Booth of enjoying an adulterous affair with her husband and retired soccer star Matthew Booth has applied for an urgent court order to muzzle her.
Bongani Mthombeni-Moller has filed papers in the Johannesburg High Court, in which she is seeking a court order to bar Sonia from not only making defamatory statements against her, but to also apologise and retract her social media posts, in which she is accusing her of wrecking her marriage to the soccer legend.
The application is expected to be heard in the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday.
Mothombeni-Moller, whose application is supported by her husband Klaus Peter Moller and the soccer legend, who both signed confirmatory affidavits, also intend to sue Sonia for financial loss at a later stage.
In the court papers, which we have seen, Mthombeni-Moller has refuted Sonia’s allegations that she was having an extra-marital affair with the former Bafana Bafana defender.
Narrating her story, Mthombeni-Moller, who described herself as a fitness fanatic, said she first met the former footie at the Virgin Active gymnasium at Steenberg in Cape Town in 2013, when he was playing for Ajax Cape Town, and they became familiar.
“We became familiar and we would at times have coffee together at the gymnasium cafeteria after exercising. He moved to Johannesburg shortly afterwards. However, I lost contact with him,” read the papers.
Mthombeni-Moller said a few years after moving to Joburg, she re-established contact with the Supers Sport soccer analyst in 2021 and later invited him and other members of the South African Football Legends (SAFL) to join her for personal training sessions at the gym.
She said because of their passion for youth development, she and Matthew’s non-profit company, Booth Trust, formed a partnership, which required them, among others, to travel together for business meetings. She said as their partnership grew in leaps and bounds, they became good friends.
“We were sometimes in each other’s company, publicly with others, not only at the gymnasium and during promotions, clinics or tournaments entailed by football empowerment initiatives, but also in social settings.
“Moreover, I sometimes invited Matthew to attend networking and business functions with me, to introduce him to potential business affiliates.
“When it was convenient, Matthew and I would travel together to and from common destinations. Sometimes we worked together privately, to discuss and plan for upcoming proposals to corporate,” read the papers.
Mthombeni-Moller, who works for Royal HaskoningDHV, said she travelled to Polokwane with Matthew between October 26 and 27. This because she was going to supervise the project that her company was implementing for the Polokwane Municipality, and Matthew was going to cover a soccer match at Polokwane Stadium for SuperSport on the same day.
She said she received a WhatsApp message from the former model on October 27, asking her to explain the nature of her relationship with her husband.
Mthombeni-Moller said Sonia later sent her another message saying she knew she was in Polokwane with her husband and had also spent time with him on Valentine’s Day.
She said after disputing that she was having a secret affair with Matthew, Sonia then met with her husband (Moller) and told him about her alleged infidelity. She said Sonia even secretly recorded her conversation with her husband without his consent. She said after meeting her husband, Sonia took to social media and published various posts about her and the football legend.
“The tenor of the respondent’s post is that I was having an adulterous affair with Matthew, which commenced on the 14th of February. As far as I can establish, the respondent never expressly said I had been sexually intimate with Matthew, but that was a clear necessary implication of her posts of and about me, and that is how her posts were intended to be understood, and were indeed understood by her readers.
Although I have been advised that it is not necessary for me to do so, I wish to state emphatically that I am not engaged in, and have never been engaged in an adulterous affair with Matthew. My admitted affection for Matthew has never strayed into sexual infidelity,” read the papers.
Sonia, she said, even hired private investigators to follow her and her husband to excavate the alleged infidelity.
“I am able to state, without fear or contradiction, that the private investigator could not uncover such evidence, because it did not exist,” read the papers.
She also added that even if she was having an affair with Matthew, it was not justifiable for Sonia to publish such information on social media, because it was not in the public interest for her do so.
Sonia’s lawyer, Clement Marumoagae, said they are going to oppose the application.
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