Kaizer Chiefs recruitment boss on how DDC players will benefit from transfer summit

Kaizer Chiefs Head of Scouting and Recruitment Thembisa Maliwa believes it was long overdue for the club to be part of the TransferRoom Summit.

The TransferRoom Summit took place in Rabat, Morocco on Monday, bringing together over 120 influential decision-makers from leading clubs, academies and agencies worldwide.

It was a great opportunity not just to share knowledge but build new contacts from different markets that the club can get talents from and Maliwa feels Chiefs could not miss out.

“We will meet a lot of people that make decisions. We have got a lot of clubs from France, England, Germany that will be there,” Maliwa told African Football Connect.

Maliwa on importance of transfer summit

“They are using the same TransferRoom so we are going for the first time, we know there are clubs there already. Wydad is part of that and we do not want football to leave us behind in what is going on in modern football.

“We are going there with the Sporting Director to meet with other clubs because you sit on the table with 20-25 different clubs where you are talking about the club profiling and the players as well.

“TransferRoom is about recruitment so it is easy to find players. If I am sitting on a table talking about, I have a player that you might be interested in and we take it from there.”

Besides looking at new markets to buy players, Maliwa also feels the summit was a good place to market some of their players, especially young ones, who can make the jump to clubs abroad.

How will Chiefs’ young players benefit?

“Football is business and we are not going there only to focus on recruitment but also to market our players as well. It could be our academy players and DDC,” added.

“It is very important to be part of that in Rabat so this is a space our club needs to be in. It has been long overdue.”

“Sundowns got players like [Marcelo] Allende through the TrasferRoom and you look at his qualities and we cannot be left behind with what the new trends are,” said Maliwa.

“Wydad are part of that and they are happy, they have a player they found through that. It is a space we want to be in because we are a big club.”