Cape Town City chairman John Comitis has explained the Premiership club’s decision to plead not guilty to the charges brought against them in relation to Mpho Makola.
Makola has been slapped with a six-month ban after being found guilty of “assaulting match official Abongile Tom during the Telkom Knockout fixture against Kaizer Chiefs at the Cape Town Stadium on October 19,” according to the PSL.
The Citizens had initially opted not to contest the decision, despite being unhappy with the length of the ban.
However, they have since had a change of heart, with Comitis telling KickOff: “They want us to go to a hearing and we are saying that how can we come to a hearing when the matter is on appeal?
“What happens if the sentence is reduced to nothing? We can’t go to a hearing and at the end of the day we didn’t do anything wrong.
“It’s not us, it’s our player that did something. So you can’t charge a club until you charge the player. And you’ve charged the player, which is on appeal, so let that process go through and then we are happy to be sanctioned, if that is the case.
“They were charging the club for misconduct. How can we have a misconduct charge when we weren’t involved in misconduct? We weren’t involved as a club.”
Comitis was also keen to point out the Gaston Sirino situation, with the Sundowns man yet to face censure after slapping both Dean Furman and Clayton Daniels in an MTN clash with SuperSport United.
He added: “I mean if you look at the other incidents… I think it’s [Gaston] Sirino… why isn’t the club [Mamelodi Sundowns] being charged in the meantime?
“So we are just waiting to see what’s going to happen.
“At this stage I said to them let the matter finish and then we know where we stand, and then we’ll know how to defend it.”