An inspiring message has been sent to Burundian striker Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana after his surprise exit from Kaizer Chiefs.
Last Wednesday, Chiefs confirmed Bimenyimana's exit after only one season with the club, having scored eight goals from 21 appearances in his debut DStv Premiership season.
In his farewell message to the club, the lanky forward took to his official Instagram page to say, and in part, "My prayer has been answered. I feel really happy to be Free."
It was this message that left the fraternity confused as to what the 25-year-old meant by being 'free' and by stating that being released was an answered prayer.
In the latest Soccer Laduma, edition 1338, the player's representative Rorui Frois spoke openly about his client's challenges at Amakhosi, while also making startling allegations about players not passing Bimenyimana the ball, in some instances.
Former Chiefs striker Patrick Mayo says he can relate to the allegations by Bimenyimana's agent as he claims to have experienced a similar kind of a situation at the Soweto giants.
The Good
"Firstly, I need to make it clear that when I arrived at Kaizer Chiefs I was welcomed very well by everyone from the chairman, technical team and everyone at the club and they made me feel at home. There were certain players who were certainly excited about my arrival at the club as it meant less stress for them as I was no longer their opponent but a teammate. Guys like Cyril Nzama and Fabian McCarthy told me that they used to stress about who was going to mark me when I was still their opponent," said Mayo.
The Bad
"It happened to me as well after I arrived at Chiefs. But if you keep quiet and don't speak about it, you will be a victim, I tell you. I didn't keep quiet and I told the guys that I was bought by the club as a striker to score goals and therefore if they didn't pass the ball to me it meant that we would all suffer at the end of the day. From that day onwards, it never happened again," he said.
The Ugly
"I had just joined the club and when it first happened I thought it was a mistake and that the guys were not doing it deliberately but as the time went on I could tell that it was something that was being done on purpose and I couldn't take it anymore. I remember this other day as we were playing 11v11 in training and I just grabbed the ball and put it under my armpit, and I addressed the guys on how I felt right there and then. I told them that if they thought they were punishing me then they had it wrong because we were all going to suffer at the end of the month if we didn't win games because of not scoring enough goals as we were not going to get bonuses. Our coach at the time was Ted (Dumitru) and I addressed the guys in IsiXhosa and the coach didn't understand what I was saying. It was at that moment that the guys realised I was upset and I remember Thabo Mooki saying, 'Likwatile iXhosa bafethu (The Xhosa guy is upset guys) and from that day the passes were coming to me at an alarming rate," Mayo added.
"What kept me going"
"What kept me going during my early days at Chiefs was having Putco (Mafani, former Chiefs Public Relations Officer) around because he kept encouraging me about having to be strong there. He made it clear to me that it was never going to be easy and that I had to be strong and fight. I understand Caleb's situation and the pain he is feeling because it happened to me and I felt the same kind of pain. Some people might not understand it because they never experienced such pain. It isn't something that is done by the technical team but the players, your own teammates do it and even with them it is never all of them but a selected few. They sabotage you!" concluded Mayo.
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