The team was sold and renamed Cape Town City about 4 years ago.
South African football club operator Mario Morfou has said that he regrets a decision he took in 2016 together with his brother George to sell Mpumalanga Black Aces.
Morfou said the team had been part of his family – they had “played, bled and cried for it” during the time they owned it – and selling it was the same as tearing themselves apart, worse allowing it to leave Mpumalanga and relocate to the Western Cape.
Mpumalanga Black Aces used to be owned by the father of the two brothers – the late Greek multi-millionaire and hotels owner Laki Morfou who died of cancer on 17 April 2011 – and was a Mpumalanga soccer team.
Laki had revived the defunct Witbank Black Aces, before renaming it Mpumalanga Black Aces in 2006 and built it into what it later became, with the club making a much anticipated return to the ranks of the PSL in May 2009.
Laki involved his sons in the running of the soccer business but 5 years after his death the kids found themselves struggling with the cost of running the PSL team going on to sell its PSL status to John Comitis at a reported R80 million in 2016.
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Comitis was one of the two co-founders of the Ajax Cape Town before he sold his shares in 2013, before buying the once legendary Black Aces and renaming Cape Town City.
Mario told Kick Off that as a family they really made a mistake in selling the club and taking it out of Mpumalanga.
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He said the “the decision pains us” and they were not supposed to do it.
“We should never have done that,” the elder Mario said.
“If I had to change things, I wouldn’t have allowed the club to move out of Mpumalanga, I would have made it a condition that it stays there,” he said.
“What pains me and thing I regret the most is not enforcing that the team stays in the province. So if I had to do it all over again, and I had to sell, I don’t think I would have agreed for it to leave the province.”
(edited by ZK)
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