Chippa United chairman Siviwe Chippa Mpengesi has responded to a recent rumour that they have reduced the asking price for Nigeria's number one, Stanley Nwabali.
According to the rumor, the Gqeberha-based side has reduced Nwabali's price from R40 million to R4.5 million.
Nwabali produced some sterling performances for Nigeria in the Africa Cup Of Nations finals that were held in Ivory Coast earlier this year.
A performance that saw him attracting interest from Premier Soccer League giants Kaizer and Orlando Pirates.
READ: EXCLUSIVE | Mpengesi: Someone is not telling the truth
Mpengesi says they were willing to let Nwabali join Kaizer Chiefs, but they were surprised when the Naturena-based club opted for a more 'expensive' Fiacre Ntwari instead.
The Rwandan international joined Amakhosi in August from TS Galaxy FC.
"It was never about the price, there were two teams who were interested, one of them was AmaZulu, but they were offering peanuts," Mpengesi tells KickOff.
"There were talks that we had with Kaizer Chiefs before the end of the season. But then we saw Kaizer Chiefs signing another goalkeeper.
"For Kaizer Chiefs, we were even gonna give them, and the price was not even that high. We were more looking at the interest of the player you know, he was going to play for a big club.
"Because I mean AmaZulu and Chippa are almost the same WhatsApp group, and you still get peanuts.
"So we weighed options, and we thought him leaving Chippa for AmaZulu wouldn't be in his best interest, so he would rather stay with Chippa if Kaizer Chiefs is no longer there," the chairman explained.
READ: Whereabouts of key document at centre of Baroka-Chippa dispute
"But the deal that we were looking for was at Kaizer Chiefs, the reported price of R40 million. That's nonsense. That thing was never there. That's a lie.
"I am told they paid R8 million for the other goalkeeper, but I can guarantee we would have charged them less.
"But of course, in their judgment, the Galaxy keeper is better than our keeper, which is something where I'm sitting, I dispute. But that's water under the bridge.
"But it has nothing to do with value, any offer we would have taken into consideration, but I mean what AmaZulu were offering was peanuts; they wanted us to give them Nwabali and Eva Nga for peanuts. That was a disrespect."
For fair play, KickOff contacted Usuthu president Sandile Zungu about what Mpengesi said.
"Well, I don't have any comment on that, I've got no comment on that," Zungu said.