Ajax Cape Town CEO Ari Efstathiou says this January transfer window has been among the hardest he has been involved in as the Urban Warriors battle to freshen their squad for the restart of the league season.
Ajax are still hoping to complete a couple of deals before Friday’s deadline, but Efstathiou says a number of factors have made the market a tough place to do business.
“It’s been particularly troublesome this January and there are a number of reasons for that,” Efstathiou tells supersport.com. “First, the big teams (Kaizer Chiefs, Mamelodi Sundowns, Orlando Pirates and BidVest Wits) are all playing in Africa and so are reluctant to release players that would lower the depth in their squads.
“The you have a club like AmaZulu that are in a desperate situation and are looking everywhere for players, which is making the market quite unsteady. There are also a number of teams around them that are also in some trouble and are also looking to sign players, but not release.
“It turns out though that they are all looking at similar types of players in similar positions, which has created a kind of status quo.
“Even with African players, many that we and other clubs would look to sign are at the African Nations Cup finals and waiting to see how that goes and perhaps earn a contract in Europe. They are holding off on South Africa for now.”
A number of PSL teams, Ajax included, have instead looked to their development structures instead this January, promoting from within rather than bringing in talent from outside the club.
But Efstathiou warns this has its dangers: “The worry is that you promote these youngsters too quickly because you feel you need them in the first team when actually they need more time to develop in the juniors. It’s can ruin careers and is a worry.”
And there is also one more major factor for the low number of transfers in this window according to the Ajax boss.
“Agents. All clubs are in a situation where if you are going to spend money, you need to improve what you have got but the kind of money that agents, in general, are looking for players these days is … out of control.
“And the upshot of that is that it is the players who suffer because they sit at clubs who do not want them, but nobody is willing to make a move for them because the agent is asking silly money.
“I won’t name names, but I can tell you now there are some very useful players in this situation – good players that are being priced out of the market by their agents.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
drop your comment about your football hero, their fashion style, like who dresses most, who drink most ,who hang out most like going to club , who plays with woman most and so on