Royal AM in Crisis: Tax Troubles, Unpaid Salaries, and Uncertainty Ahead

MaMkhize and Royal AM in trouble as PSL cancels teams’ fixtures. Image: Independent Media.

It emerged on Wednesday that Royal AM, the KwaZulu Natal-based soccer team, has had all its upcoming matches postponed indefinitely by the Premier Soccer League after learning that the team and its owner have been placed under curatorship by the South African Revenue Services.

It was learnt by the media fraternity that the PSL had sought, without success, guarantees that the take-over of the team by the curator would not completely destabilise the team. This follows from a number of events that started with the tax regulator raiding the house of the team’s President, Shauwn Mkhize, popularly known as MaMkhize. During this raid, it is learnt that several of the owner’s luxury cars were confiscated after she failed to settle a tax debt of R40 million. Following this, it is further said that the team failed to pay salaries of its workers and this has led to despondency among the employees of the team, who claim that they have not been paid for more than two months. Royal AM delayed paying both November and December salaries to their players and officials. While it was learnt that some of the players had received their salaries, coaching and support staff seem to have been left in the cold.

To add to the woes of this once flamboyant outfit, they failed to fulfil their fixture, which had required that they travel to the town of Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape. Despite all this, the team’s General Manager, Richard Makhoba, moved quickly to allay fears in the public by saying that the team had signed 37 players and that the match which was scheduled to be played on Thursday, 23 January against Orlando Pirates, would still go ahead. This does not look like a possibility as the players do not seem to have trained for some time due to the fact that coaches and support staff have not received their salaries. Said a player who spoke on condition of anonymity, “On Monday, when we got there [to the training base in Pietermaritzburg] the security guys were on strike and didn’t want to open the gate. They haven’t been paid for three months. The coaches have been at home because they are owed salaries.”

It has also been established that these are not the only problems bedevilling the team. The team is still reeling from the ruling made by FIFA, the football world governing body, that they are not allowed to sign any player until they pay the R15 million that they owe striker, Samir Nurkovic.