Spurs vow to contest Chiefs-linked Velebayi ‘victory’ – ‘Not just poor reasoning’ it is gross!’

Cape Town Spurs have hit back at the National Soccer League Dispute Resolution Chamber for their ruling regarding South Africa international Asanele Velebayi.

The 22-year-old had taken the club to the tribunal protesting their failure to let him join Kaizer Chiefs on a free transfer following Spurs' relegation to the South African third tier. According to the Safa rules, when a club is relegated to the ABC Motsepe League, the players become free agents since it is an amateur tier.

It was the case with Velebayi, but the Cape Town outfit argued the attacker is still contracted to the club. However, the NSL DRC ruled the Bafana Bafana midfielder is a free agent and can join any team that wants to sign him.

‘A contract is a contract!'

“In a decision that has sent shockwaves through the South African football community, a National Soccer League (NSL) Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) (Panel Members: Mosupi Mashele (Chairperson), Amanda Vilakazi and Adv. Saleem Seedat) has declared Cape Town Spurs player Asanele Velebayi a free agent following the club’s relegation. While on the surface it appears to be a victory for player freedom, the ruling is a legal and logical catastrophe—one built on contradictory reasoning and a wilful ignorance of contractual law. More alarmingly, it has fired a fatal shot into the heart of football development, threatening to make long-term investment in young talent an unsustainable and ultimately pointless endeavour,” they stated.

“The premise of the case was simple: Spurs were relegated, and players like Velebayi, Liam Bern, and Luke Baartman (all of whom came through the Spurs academy over a combined period of 30 years) argued this fundamentally changed their employment, entitling them to walk away from their contracts. Spurs, a club with a three-decade legacy of nurturing talent, stood firm on the legal principle of pacta sunt servanda: a contract is a contract. The club sent letters to the players insisting their contracts remained valid and binding.

“The DRC panel, in its wisdom, sided with the player. But the path it took to get there was not one of sound legal principle, but of baffling self-contradiction. In its award, the panel first agrees with a previous ruling (Mokhari SC) that relegation does not automatically grant free agency. Then, in a stunning reversal just paragraphs later, it declares that the “ordinary grammatical meaning” of the rules means relegation alone is enough,” they argued.

‘This is not just poor reasoning; it is a gross'

“This is not just poor reasoning; it is a gross, reviewable error that creates crippling uncertainty. How can clubs operate when a dispute body cannot even maintain a consistent legal argument within a single judgment?  But the true devastation of this award lies not in its flawed legal gymnastics, but in its complete disregard for the economic realities of football. Cape Town Spurs is not merely a team; it is one of the nation’s premier development institutions. For over 30 years, it has identified, coached, educated, and nurtured young boys into professional men. This is a long, arduous, and incredibly expensive process,” Spurs added.

“According to figures verified by the club’s auditors, the input cost for a single player who has been in the academy for 10 years is a minimum of R8,000,000. This staggering sum covers coaching, facilities, travel, education, and welfare. The training compensation fees a club might receive when an academy player signs their first professional contract covers less than 5% of this monumental investment.

“The entire business model, therefore, relies on the sanctity of that first professional contract. It is the club’s only mechanism to protect its investment and, hopefully, generate a future transfer fee that can be reinvested back into the next generation of youngsters.”

Spurs set to appeal?

The club's Chiefs Executive Officer, CEO, Alexi Efstathiou has confirmed they will not take the decision as final. Cape Town Spurs management is now set to appeal it, once it has a meeting with the legal team.

“We would never accuse someone with no evidence, as it would be irresponsible and unprofessional. We know what the player is valued at, he has a contract with our club, and that needs to be respected, no matter the club,” he stated.

“We will ascertain after consulting with the legal team the possibility of arbitration and appeal. In the meantime, that will depend on the Baartman case and also the yet to be heard Bern case,” he concluded.