Gather round ladies and gents, it's time for the @Moroka_Swallows #KnowYourOwner review

Chabedi, Prins and FB Soccer
@Lesufi role
The three Swallows companies
Enter chairman @DavidMVM
IN2IT Sponsorship scandal
Sources of income

#UpTheBirds #DStvPrem

As usual, I will re-post my disclaimer. I'm not an auditor, accountant nor am I a sports journalist. I am merely a football fan who likes to read up on the financial side of sport and this is all publicly available information

Let's go

#KnowYourOwner #DStvPrem

To tell the story, I begin on 1 July 1999. At the time, Moroka Swallows was owned and controlled by David Chabeli who had 84% shareholding with the rest in minority hands. Interestingly, during this time, a company called Bernstein Chabeli Holdings (BCH ) emerges.

This company was made up of Neil Bernstein and David "Pine" Chabeli. On this date in 1999, BCH showed up on the CIPC registration of another company called FB Soccer Investments which was registered on the exact same day. Coincidence perhaps? NO!

FB Soccer Investments had Dolly and David Mosima, Leon Prins, and Neil Bernstein as directors. In January 2002, all the directors apart from Leon Prins had resigned which left Leon Prins in sole charge of FB Soccer Investments.

At the time, Neil Bernstein had bought the late David Chabeli's shares in Moroka Swallows and sold the equity to FB Soccer Investments. It had been an epic takeover that left minority Moroka Swallows shareholders blindsided. But how did this happen one might ask?

It turns out there was a master strategist behind the whole scheme. His name was Dieter Bock, a German billionaire. He was a lawyer and accountant who got his start in property and tax advisory. At the time of his death in 2010, Bock had an estimated net worth of £500m.

He was the largest shareholder of the Kempinski Hotels, shareholder of the Philipp Holzmann construction group and famously bullied his way into the ownership of Lonhro which at one point was one of the biggest companies in Africa with Lonmin mining as one of its subsidiaries

It turns out that FB Soccer was fully owned by Bock and he was effectively now owner of Moroka Swallows. But why would a German tycoon want to buy Moroka Swallows? Speculation has always been rife that Prins and Bock were friends and it was Prins who wanted ownership of Swallows.

Who is Leon Prins and what is his back story? His early life is unknown but I could verify that he is now 63 years old having been born in 1957. It is unclear how he came to be involved in FB Soccer Investments and thus Moroka Swallows.

None of the other companies he's been involved in have any notable achievements but one of the directors of Levitt Freidman Corporate is Neil Bernstein who I earlier mentioned as having been instrumental in getting hold of the former Moroka Swallows owner, David Chabeli's shares

Nonetheless, Bock was owner and Prins was installed as CEO of Moroka Swallows. All went fairly well until 2010 when Bock suddenly died. Bock intended to sell the club in 2010 before his death and there were rumors that the club had been sold shortly before he died came to nothing

With Bock dead and Prins the sole director of FB, he effectively took over the full ownership of Moroka Swallows in 2010 and things started to unravel thereafter.

Prins had to put his business acumen to the test and it didn't go that well.

There were rumors of a R30 million tax obligation to SARS, then came the loss of headline sponsor VW in 2013. At that point the club was in freefall, narrowly avoiding relegation in the 2013/14 season before being relegated for the first time the following year.

In 2015, fans thought they had seen the back of Prins when it was announced that he had resigned his position as CEO but that joy was short-lived as Prins had drafted the resignation letter but never officially resigned.

He returned to the club in January of 2016 but that wasn't enough to arrest the slide and Moroka Swallows were relegated further to the ABC Motsepe League. At the time, the club were in real danger of disappearing as a club and something needed to be done to save the team

Someone had been plotting to do just that. In 2015, Gauteng MEC For Education and lifelong Swallows supporter, @Lesufi met with Prins on how the club could be saved. Prins would throw in the towel and give the club to Lesufi. Prins's resignation was confirmed in September 2016.

Lesufi's intentions were adequately publicized - let's have a brief look at his interests in Moroka Swallows. Andrek Lesufi was born on 4 September 1968 in Edenvale. He and his parents were evicted from Edenvale due to the Group Areas Act and thus relocated to Tembisa

He was given the nickname "Panyaza" because of his love of football - Swallows have always been his team of choice. Lesufi attended Tlamatlama Lower Primary School and went on to Tshepisa Higher Primary School. He matriculated from Boitumelong Senior Secondary School

He went on to tertiary education at the University of Natal where he obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration.

It was here where he began to understand the power of education and began to show his immense leadership skills which set him up for his career.

He is a career politician who began his career while at secondary school and became a member of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), was a South African Student Congress (SASCO) member while at university and was also elected the president of the university's SRC.

He was the inaugural deputy regional secretary of the ANC's Ekurhuleni Region and has served on the ANC's Provincial Executive Committee since 2007. Following Lesufi's election to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature in 2014, he was named Gauteng MEC for Education.

In 2019, Gauteng Premier, David Makhura deployed Lesufi to the position of Gauteng MEC for Finance and e-Government but there was a public outcry that necessitated his redeployment back to the department of education by the premier.

He was Gauteng educations Mr Dependable

Given his experience, he was well suited for a leading role in trying to revive Moroka Swallows but soon found out that the the administrative mess left behind by Prins and the financial obligations were way beyond him and his partners.

In a July 2017 interview, @Lesufi detailed the extent of the rot at Swallows. At the time he noted that Swallows owed over R197 million to institutions such as the South African Revenue Services (SARS), Stadium Management, former players and others

Lesufi spoke about how over R5 million was spent just in the process of trying to clean up the administrative mess. I could not find companies owned by Lesufi which means the money used in attempting to clean up the mess may have come from his own pocket along with donor help

Inevitably, the original Moroka Swallows had to be liquidated to bring the Bock and Prins era to a close. That meant that the club had a lot of red tape attached to it. While that process was ongoing, Lesufi had secured a funder to help with reviving the Dube Birds.

Lesufi and his backers could not use the club's original name. As a consequence, an entity by the name Swallows FC was registered on June 2017 with Lesufi's other partners as directors. I assume this was because Lesufi never wanted to be involved in the day to day club matters.

A funder, believed to be David Mogashoa quickly bought the commercial property rights of the now liquidated Moroka Swallows and went in search of a club to buy. As the liquidation process was being completed one major issue remained unsolved

That was an issue of a 2014 FIFA finding against Moroka Swallows involving Brazilian midfielder Igor Medeiros de Melo Alves who was owed almost R300,000

This meant that despite the liquidation being completed, the consortium still could not use the original Swallows name.

Nonetheless, @DavidMVM, Lesufi and others went ahead with their plans and purchased the status of Maccabi FC for R8.5 million. This allowed them to compete in the 2019/20 National First Division as Swallows FC.

It wasn't all smooth flying for the new @SwallowsFC consortium. They experienced harsh headwinds and got their wings clipped a few times trying to secure the Birds to take flight. Prior to obtaining the NFD status from Maccabi, they had tried to buy the status of Free State Stars

That deal fell through as the inexperienced consortium failed to meet some of the conditions of sale set by the National Soccer League. When they had begun playing, they thought they had found themselves a sponsor in a company called IN2IT Technologies.

The sponsorship was valued at R150‚000 a month but the deal fell through after it emerged that IN2IT had scored a multi-million rand tender with the Gauteng provincial government of which Lesufi is an executive.

Due to Lesufi's involvement with Swallows FC, it was agreed that the sponsorship would be terminated. My research did not find evidence of any wrong doing by the Swallows consortium nor @Lesufi himself in respect to the R30m tender.

Lessons were learned and they moved on..

In July of 2019 a third entity was registered under the name of Moroka Swallows FC, not to be confused with the original Moroka Swallows Football Club that had been registered in 1971. In the 2019 registration, @DavidMVM was the sole director.