Orlando Pirates club administrative manager Floyd Mbele says any possible arrivals at the club have been put on hold along with plans for next season due to uncertainty caused by the coronavirus.
As the season normally begins to end, the transfer market almost immediately heats up as clubs look to plan in advance and be ready for the moment the transfer window opens.
In recent weeks, Pirates have been linked to a number of players, including the likes of Maritzburg United duo Rushine De Reuck and Richard Ofori.
Mbele, however, told KickOff.com that any plans at Pirates are on the back burner as they look to deal with the pandemic and focus on the end of this season before trying to navigate the uncertainty of next season.
‘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,’ said Mbele.
‘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 [16 April] – 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 government says we have enough empirical evidence to say, “This thing is not going anywhere, so we’re going to lock down 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 – like 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 may be?
‘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.’
