The management of Kaizer Chiefs would like to respond to the the article in the Sunday World dated 22 January 2006 (P/31), on Mr. Emile Baron, just to clear a few contradictions.

Firstly we must state that Kaizer Chiefs is concerned at the manner in which Mr Emile Baron has been attacked as controversial and having mysteriously disappeared from the club.

We find these accusation and uninformed judgement on our player and management really misleading and confusing to our loyal supporters and other stakeholders.

We want to state that our players and staff are full-time employees that follow normal labour relations procedures to report for duty during working hours.

We also have internal procedures should any employee apply for any type of leave of absence or seek permission to temporarily leave the premises to attend to matters outside the working environment.

For the record, Mr. Emile Baron was given two days of rest after he was diagnosed as having sustained an injury during the festive season. This is a normal decision by any well-meaning medical team to prevent further complications when players report injuries before and after any game.

This diagnosis was reported to the Team Manager and the Coaching staff who subsequently granted Mr. Baron permission to skip training but report for routine medical check-up to monitor his recovery.

It is therefore controversial that the decision to lay our player off is all of a sudden interpreted and colourfully headlined as “mysterious disappearance” whilst we essentially knew where he was.

Secondly, we find the alleged mysterious disappearance of the player a questionable judgement and very ironic after two most senior officials confirmed that Emile was and still is injured.

This disregard of official statements make us wonder if it is really necessary to respond to enquiries if stories are just merely created to stir the unsuspecting media consumers into emotions.

We are also disturbed by the impact of such ignorance of logic on our supporters who immediately swarm our office with enquiries and concerns over the welfare of their idolised heroes.

We hope that such unfortunate experiences are curtailed before any relationships are compromised. Kaizer Chiefs is still committed to work with your institution by providing accurate and relevant information on its developments.

We however find it unfortunate that such distortions receive prominence and only cause consternation within other internal structures of the club.

We appeal for more concern and a conscious approach when reflecting on the image of both our club and brand.

Thanks

Thebe Mohatle (Mr)


Communications Manager, PRO


0829910927/0119411465


Kaizer Chiefs