'What Swallows are doing is criminal': Players union slams PSL club for 'evil and diabolical' conduct

The South African Football Players' Union (Safpu) was scathing in its rebuke of Moroka Swallows' conduct, alleging that the club put together a sham of a disciplinary hearing designed to help improve their compromised financial standing. 

In a leaked statement, the independent chair of Swallows' internal disciplinary hearing recommended that the club dismiss 22 players with immediate effect following the Dube Birds' failure to honour their last two fixtures in December last year. 

Swallows caused a stir when it announced it wouldn't be able to take part in its last two games of 2023 against Mamelodi Sundowns and Golden Arrows due to "an unresolved dispute between the players and management". 

Swallows didn't state the nature of that disagreement, but it had to do with the non-payment of the players' salaries.

The club's coach, Steve Komphela, confirmed this after the 2-1 loss to SuperSport United on 15 December, saying that he had to persuade the players to honour the fixture against Matsatsantsa a Pitori because the players did not take part in training that week;  they hadn't been paid some of the monies the club owes them.

The Premier Soccer League's (PSL) disciplinary committee (DC) punished Swallows for the no-show. 

Sundowns and Swallows were each given three points, along with a 3-0 scoreline, while the Soweto club was fined R1 million.

However, R600 000 of that R1 million was suspended, which meant the club only had to pay R400 000 and the costs of the sitting. 

But before Swallows were sanctioned, the club announced in late December that it would bring charges of their own on its players for misconduct and being involved in what it deemed an illegal strike.

This led to the hearing where it was recommended that 22