MAPEPA’S ILLEGAL MOVE TO TURKEY
MAPEPA’S ILLEGAL MOVE TO TURKEY
The club has been made aware of the player’s move to Turkey without our knowledge through social media reports though we were aware that she was out of the country.
1. Mapepa is not a free agent. She is contracted to The Elite Ladies FC up to 31st May 2025. Mapepa’s said termination of her contract with the club is not on record and FAZ never wrote to us on that. And her move to Turkey could only have happened if she has been given a temporary registration pending determination of her status or if FAZ proceeded to issue the ITC without both the knowledge and permission of the club.
2. Mapepa’s ITC, if issued by FAZ, has no blessing from the club. We told FAZ not to proceed with the ITC. Records are there. On Friday, Mr Cuthbert Thuwa was told to cancel the ITC request since the club did not have access to the FIFA TMS at the time. He responded that he could not do so but never gave any reasons why. Later he said that he didn’t have power. We believe FAZ can operate even with loadshedding on matters of urgency and importance. This means he neither cancelled the ITC request nor gave the club access to the FIFA TMS as requested. Without access to the TMS for us to cancel the ITC request, only Mr Thuwa had the power to protect The Elite Ladies FC. We have since written to FAZ and we will also write to FIFA over the illegal move. It’s not the first time players have been stolen from clubs in Zambia and taken to Europe despite clubs here doing everything right. Sometimes it is our very own people who are complicit in these thefts of players. If anyone committed fraud this time around, they will be punished appropriately and severely.
3. The club has been up-to-date with payments and this includes payments this month of March 2024 and FAZ has been given proof of payments to the player.
4. The player has not been playing because she was on suspension for substance abuse just after her last game for the club. We have decided not to give details to the public in order to protect the player and give her chance to be a better person and make it in her career both abroad and even in the national team. It is not in our nature to damage what we studiously put together. We choose our battles wisely and know that some arguments are not worth winning, hence our silence over this matter all along. But her suspension was reported to the FAZ.
5. Mapepa was taken to Turkey by an agent called Chileshe Darlton who signed a representation contract with her on 22nd December 2023 when Mapepa already had an official agency contract signed with ProSport International and Kinetic Sports Consultants valid from 28th February 2022 to 27th February 2024. This is the agent under whom she travelled to Sweden for trials in August 2022. Mapepa never terminated the original contract signed by Michael Macaab of South Africa before signing with Darlton. This makes her move illegal as it was done by someone using a contract which is void ab-initio. Even if this contract was valid, Darlton has not shown FAZ that she is a registered and licensed agent. And we never had her mandate signed by the player on our files. Only FAZ can prove whether she should be allowed to work as an agent and if she is both registered and licensed.
6. We leave FAZ to address the public in full on this matter to show how they allowed this move to happen without the knowledge and blessing of this club. We believe in the leadership of Mr Andrew Kamanga and we believe that FAZ will not allow our club to be swindled of its most prized player. At the end of the FAZ case and the FIFA case, we believe that we shall receive every coin due to us and that a transfer fee of not less than USD 10,000 plus compensation for the illegal transfer.
7. This is our last statement on Mapepa. We believe that all we need is our transfer fee as we have since moved on from her on the pitch. She did very well for us and we appreciate her services over the years. We wish her all the best once her move has been regularised and we have been paid.
Thank you,
Shalala Oliver Sepiso
CEO
The Elite Ladies FC