Pirates give an insight into transfer plans

Premier Soccer League giants Orlando Pirates have put all talks regarding possible signings on hold as uncertainty continues as to whether or not the current season will be completed.

Read: Pirates’ star winger attracts huge overseas interest

Several names have been thrown onto Pirates’ list, who have notably been linked with Maritzburg United duo Rushine De Reuck and Richard Ofori, with the club administrative manager Floyd Mbele insisting that the links are all very premature.

Six of the eleven Orlando Pirates players who joined the Soweto giants at the beginning of the 2019/20 campaign.
(Image: Gallo)

“Your focus is on dealing with the pandemic and making sure you’re healthy and staying alive, you can’t be preoccupied with signing players,” Mbele told KickOff.com.

“We need to understand what we are dealing with because if people did then these conversations wouldn’t even exist. The lockdown is exactly that, everything has come to a standstill.

“Assuming we meet, we have a teleconference and talk, what are we going to say? Is the league going to start at the time it’s expected to start? Everybody would have said yes, the lockdown is finishing [April 16], low and behold, it was extended by another fortnight.

“So we could sit and plan now for when it happens in the first week of May. What if the government says we have enough empirical evidence to say, ‘This thing is not going anywhere so we’re going to lockdown for three more weeks.’ What happens to the plans?

“You can’t talk about next season when you don’t even know when next season will be, or what form or shape it’s going to take.

“What if this thing takes so long, we then have a divided league and it decides – as they did during the World Cup time – they must change the nature of how we’re going to play, or play two streams, or whatever the case maybe?

“That will have a massive impact on plans. So you can’t have these conversations during a time like this. Inside the clubs, there’s absolutely nothing to discuss.”