Exclusive: Royal AM Lawyer Opens Up On Nurkovic Case

Royal AM’s legal representative Leruma Thobejane has opened up on the legal case between the club and Samir Nurkovic, which allegedly has the club on the brink of a transfer ban by FIFA.

The KwaZulu-Natal side signed Nurkovic after his contract with Kaizer Chiefs came to end, showing their improved ambitions after qualifying for the CAF Confederations Cup following an impressive debut campaign after they purchased the status of Bloemfontein Celtic.

However, things between Nurkovic and Royal AM never worked, as the striker never made an official appearance for the club.

The situation is currently at the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, who are understood to have ruled in Nurkovic’s favour, alleging Royal AM failed to honour the player’s contract after dismissing him in October without paying him his salary, as widely communicated via his lawyer Davor Lazic.

Leruma, though, insists there are certain discrepancies in the case, with the club’s first argument being that Nurkovic “never” reported for training before 15 September.

“There is a huge misrepresentation of the facts here. Nurkovic signed a contract with Royal AM which naturally would’ve commenced on 1 July 2022,” he told iDiski Times.

“What Nurkovic did was not to honour the contract by not reporting to duty on the first day of the contract. Nurkovic has not reported for duty and the only time he pitched as on 16 September 2022.

“He only arrived on the 16th and on the 16th his lawyer sent a letter demanding a salary for July, August and September, and we responded to that letter by giving notice of his termination because in terms of the contract with the club, we are entitled to terminate if we believe that the player has no intention of honouring his commitment to the contract.

“He got a 30-day notice, which commenced in September and had to end in October because he arrived in September.

“When he played at Macufe Cup on 26 September, he was on 30-days notice. Before the end of his notice he left, but Royal AM paid his full salary for the month.”

Thobejane continued his argumentation that Nurkovic’s initial claim stated he was at Royal AM from 1 July, while the club maintained the player did not report to training until September.

“When Nurkovic absented himself, he did not request anyone for permission to be absent from work,” he argued.

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“Nobody knew his whereabouts, but when he arrived the same day there is a letter from his attorneys saying he demands payments for the past months.

“The club issued that notice in response to the demand for payment. He decided to take the matter to FIFA, which is within his rights to do so, Royal AM defended the matter.

“When you lodge you lodge a complaint with FIFA, there is a deadline for the respondent to file his/her answer and Royal AM filed its answer. In his own [version], Nurkovic stated that he was at Royal AM from commencement of his contract until he was ‘unlawfully terminated’ by Royal AM at the end of October.

“We filed our response to prove that he has never been at Royal AM to consume his contract until 16 September 2022 and on this date his lawyer wrote a letter demanding outstanding salaries for the months he did not work.

“But remember, he cannot have a binding contract when his work was never consumed [started].”

The lawyer then explained that Nurkovic’s side changed their claims, and the initial response by FIFA did not reach Royal AM’s offices.

“They were given Royal AM’s response, and they were given to file a response to Royal AM’s answer. They filed their papers and FIFA ‘deliberately’ did not give us that document and we were not aware of that document,” he continued.

“What they filed was a ‘rejoinder’, meaning a new claim and the claim was that we dismissed Mr Nurkovic because Mr Nurkovic was apparently ill or was injured, which is not what was in their original claim.

“Without receiving that document we’re not able to respond to it, until we got a letter from FIFA, stating that we have missed the deadline to respond to the ‘rejoinder’.

“I responded to that letter myself from FIFA, I told FIFA ‘we’ve not received the rejoinder from Mr Nurkovic’s attorneys as alleged in your letter. Until such time that we have been provided with such rejoinder, we will not respond to something we don’t know and we deem the proceedings to still be open.

“Instead of FIFA responding to my letter, they then send an email, here is Mr Nurkovic’s response to Royal AM’s [initial] answer, but they did not go to an extend of apologising for failing to provide us with Nurkovic’s answer to our [initial] response, but proceeded to allege that we had missed the deadline.”

Finally, Thobejane recapped the whole case and said that Royal AM, to date, have not received the “motivated award” (an explanation of the ruling and how they got to it) after FIFA ruled in Nurkovic’s favour and ordered the club to pay him his full compensation.

“Royal AM raised two defences, the first defence was that this gentleman has not resumed his contract, he was absent, he was on leave of absence indefinitely until he arrived on the 16th, he didn’t consume his contract,” he stated.

“We denied that he attended duty from 1 July until he was given notice by Royal AM. In their own documents to proof that he was at Royal AM, they then brought up Instagram photos of this gentleman wearing Royal AM regalia.

“In our response we provided full documents from the first camp that was held in Mbombela, which took place from 29 June to 3 July, the second camp that was held at Pretoria High Performance Centre, which took place from 4 July to 10 July, the full training sessions in preparation for the new season, which took place from 11 July until the start of the campaign, we gave them full documents, not from us only, but also our hosts from the two facilities, showing that Mr Nurkovic was not anywhere.

“We even went further to send them whatsapp messages between Mr Nurkovic and the general manager, which took place on 11 and 12 of September, where he requested a room in Pietermaritzburg because he wants to join the team in Pietermaritzburg…

“They [FIFA] went on to decide the matter, they came to a ‘notification of a ruling’, which is a summary of what they ordered. The order is Royal AM has to honour the contract and pay Mr Nurkovic the entire contractual term in compensation.

“Royal AM has 10 days in terms of the FIFA Disciplinary Code, you have 10 days from the receipt of the notification of the award to request a motivated award (an award with reasons why they arrived at their decision). We still have not received that.

“But in the notification of the award itself they make the following, they give the award and in terms of the FIFA rules you have 45 days to either pay or get banned, or you have 10 days to request a ‘motivated award’. Until such time you receive the ‘motivated award’, the operation and execution of that award is suspended.

“Once you receive the ‘motivated award’, which are still waiting on, they have to write their full judgement now, once you receive that you have 21 days yo appeal that to CAS [the Court of Arbitration of Sport], once you appeal it, you appeal it to CAS. As long as you file an appeal to CAS that suspends the execution of any award issued by the FIFA DRC.

“As things stand I’m still waiting for the ‘motivated award’, the full judgement. The award given to us on 3 May, from their we lodged our request for ‘motivated award’. Any final award which must be honoured, must be communicated via SAFA and SAFA will communicate it to the PSL.

“As I speak to you now FIFA cannot communicate that award to SAFA for implementation to the PSL, because they know that we have requested ‘motivated award’. Until such time that we have received it and been given 21 days to appeal it to CAS, they cannot do anything.

“To summarise, Mr Nurkovic was paid for the month he was with Royal AM, but he did not work from 1 July until 15 September. He commenced work on 16 September, when his lawyers demanded salary for the months when he was not there.”

Thobejane further stated that Nurkovic was never registered as a Royal AM player with the Premier Soccer League and never received a player card. He didn’t complete his medicals at the club, and never signed a registration form, because “he was not there”.

When contact by iDiski Times whether Nurkovic was indeed not registered, Media Officer Fhatuwani Mpfuni stated: “Unfortunately due to the POPIA act, we do not share registration records.”

The deadline that was given by FIFA for Royal to pay Nurkovic was set at 19 June, Monday, and it remains to be seen whether the club will now be banned from transfers or have a claim with their side of the argument.