Nomads’ duo might return to Japan
Be Forward Wanderers’ General Secretary, Mike Butao, has insisted that the door to Japan football is not shut for their midfielder Joseph Kamwendo and striker Peter Wadabwa.
Butao on Tuesday said the duo might, alongside defender Stanley Sanudi and another player, return to the Asian country for trials with teams such as Yokohama FC.
“There is still an opportunity for them to go back once they recover together with Stanley Sanudi and one other player as part of the second group,” said Butao about the duo, who, despite claims that they did not attend the actual trials, got injured while playing for the so-called amateur teams.
Wadabwa and Kamwendo returned home on Saturday so bitter after reportedly being made to train with nondescript Japanese university college teams, claiming top clubs that were interested in them were on off-season break.
Butao attributed the failed trials to the fact that Be Forward Limited only applied for a 30- day visa to enable the players acclimatise to the cold weather of Japan.
“Anyway, in a nutshell this has been a learning process. More or same players will be going to Japan in the course of the same season. Lessons learned from this will make us and the sponsors plan differently. Planning is done by the sponsors at no cost to the club or the players,” he added.
“Clubs start pre-season preparations this week. The visas were not for trials but for visiting [the] sponsors. This is because the sponsors did not want to restrict their trials to one club, that is why the visa application was not based on a request for trials from one particular club. Unfortunately, they were given only 15 days visit visas and the sponsors failed to extend the visas that side.”
He dismissed the players’ earlier remarks that their visas were with effect from December 2 2016, saying that was actually the day the visas’ application was made.
“So the failure to extend the visas rendered the whole timing wrong. As I am talking now, there is an invitation from Yokohama F.C for them to attend trials from yesterday [January 24]. I have forwarded the invitation to both players just so that they understand,” Butao added.
Both players have been reluctant to comment much on the trials.
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