Gallants matter now closed after officials' arrival - Kodwa

Sports minister Zizi Kodwa says they have no intention of taking the Marumo Gallants matter further after the team's two officials, Rufus Matsena and Tebogo Dhlomo, returned to the country safely on Monday.

The pair were held captive for three weeks in a Libyan hotel over a dispute regarding unpaid flight bookings made through the hotel's owner Ali Elzargha.

While the rest of the Gallants team returned home following their match against Al Akhdar on March 19, the two remained behind to help facilitate the outstanding payment to Elzargha made on behalf of the club.

But after intervention from the department of international relations and cooperation (Dirco), it was agreed that the two return home.

"From the sports point of view, that matter is closed. I don't want to go into politics and instability in other countries, but from the club and Libya, the matter is now closed," Kodwa told the media after a press conference  in Sandton yesterday.

Kodwa also said that from now on, together with federations and the SA embassy, they will be working together to make sure something like this doesn't happen to any local team when they travel in the continent.

"The federation must be involved, the embassy must be involved as well and Dirco, so these are the issues that we must resolve so we don't find any of our teams in this situation again," he said.

"If you talk to one of our best teams in the continent, Mamelodi Sundowns, they will tell you about these stories. We thank the Libyan embassy for the role they played to make sure they [Matsena and Dhlomo] are released and the settlement has been found."

Kodwa also said he had spoken to CAF president Patrice Motsepe about the challenges SA teams face while participating in both the Champions League and the Confederation Cup.

"I think CAF has a role to play because we can't have every team in SA that goes and plays in the continent and get this kind of difficulties off the field and on the field. I got a commitment from the CAF president that there are certain things they will do because country to country, sometimes they do certain things to win the game."

Meanwhile, Gallants chairman Abram Sello said they faced difficulties transferring the funds into the country as there were no functioning electronic payments systems and everything had to be settled in cash.