Johannesburg- A legal showdown between former Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane and Mamelodi Sundowns is about to kick off over his refusal to pay the club over R8-million in agent commission paid to his wife’s company.
This comes after two parties failed attempts to reach an agreement to refer their dispute to the National Soccer League’s (NSL) dispute resolution chamber (DRC) for a solution.
Sunday World can reveal that Mosimane and his wife’s company, Moira Tlhagale Sports Marketing and Management (MS Sport), filed a special plea in the Joburg High Court last month asking it to red-card the club’s multimillion-rand claim against them.
Sundowns replied by filing replication papers asking the court to dismiss Mosimane’s plea, saying the DRC has no jurisdiction over the matter.
In the papers, which we have seen, Mosimane and the company insist that Sundowns were supposed to have referred their dispute, as per their “intermediary agreement”, which they signed separately from the head coach agreement to the DRC.
He said the “intermediary agreement” also stipulated that should the DRC find itself having no jurisdiction over the impasse, then it should be taken to the high court.
Mosimane said Sundowns had failed to refer it to DRC before instituting the lawsuit against him and MS Sport, and therefore the court should dismiss the claim against them.
Jingles, as Mosimane is affectionately known, and his wife also said the club was responsible for the breakdown of their work relationship.
They also said the fact that then club president Patrice Motsepe and Mosimane agreed to terminate his contract automatically relieved them of any burden of paying any portion of the commission back to the club.
“In the premise, the above honourable court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate this dispute, alternatively the claim is premature. Wherefore the defendants pray that the plaintiff’s claim to be dismissed with costs,” read the papers.
In their replication papers, Sundowns dismissed as false Mosimane and the MS Sport’s claims that the DRC has jurisdiction to resolve their squabble.
The legal showdown between the Brazilians and Mosimane started early this year when the club filed papers in the Joburg High Court in which they sought a court order to force Mosimane and the company to pay back almost R8-million linked to an R1.5-million monthly salary he was receiving. This was after he left to join Al Ahly in Egypt in September last year.
The club said it had signed a four-year contract with Mosimane on May 20 2020 after signing a “head coach agreement” with Tlhagale.
The club paid the commission upfront instead of dividing and paying it out every season.
It further said Mosimane and Tlhagale agreed to pay back the commission pro-rata if he quit the Chloorkop side before his contract came ended.
The club accused Mosimane of terminating his contract last September 30, after coaching the team for only four months of the 48-month contract.
Sundowns legal and commercial executive Yogesh Singh said: “If you ask whether this matter can be settled out of court, then our answer is of course it can.
Remember our claim is for a commission paid in advance at their request, which we were under no legal obligation to pay. So they must do the right thing and pay back the money,” he wrote.
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