Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Rulani Mokwena has alluded to how he is dealing with Sipho Mbule and Andile Jali situation after reports that they arrived at training inebriated.
Reports have been doing the rounds that Mbule and Jali broke the club's code of conduct by arriving at training under the influence of alcohol.
Jali has not been in the squad since the reports emerged while Mbule was used as a late substitute in a 1-1 draw against Stellenbosch on Sunday.
Read: Retired Star: Why Sundowns Still Need Jali
Mokwena appealed to the media that the situation is an internal matter and that he has the responsibility to protect the players and the club.
"I have two responsibilities, the first responsibility I have for the club, protect Mamelodi Sundowns, number one," Mokwena said in a press conference after their draw against Stellenbosch.
"Number two, I have to protect my players and those are two very important responsibilities. What I will say and I will say this in a coach-less situation.
"Before I'm a coach, I'm a human being and before they are players they are human beings and so we have to be very careful sometimes not to go to the side where we affect the person, only because we're targeting the professional," he said.
Mokwena continued and reiterated his stance for the club to protect the players because "no one is perfect".
"And I don't wanna go too much into detail because at the end of the day things that happen in the club are for the football club to deal with and there are some many internal things that happen at every single club," he went on.
"And it becomes very important for the football club not to just protect the professionals, including myself but also the human being because like in corporate, like in every other job, no one is perfect.
"And so that imperfection must come also with the acceptance that people will have my back and people will have in my moments where I act as a human being, where I have more weaknesses than strengths," he said.
"I have more mistakes than good moments. Those moments I have to know and that's where I am, that I'm there for the players but it will never be at the expense of the football club," he added.
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