With the signing of Argentinian midfielder Matias Esquivel, Mamelodi Sundowns will probably have to deregister two of their foreign players to accommodate the foreign quota in the squad.
Each team in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) is permitted to register just five foreigners.
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Siya sources have indicated that the Brazilians could sacrifice an Ethiopian and a Zimbabwean player to remedy the situation. The two players could be Abubeker Nasir and Divine Lunga respectively.
Currently Sundowns have seven foreign players on their books and the other five are Morocco's Abdelmounaim Boutouil, the Argentine duo of Junior Mendieta and the newly signed Esquivel, Chile's Marcelo Allende and Brazilian ace Lucas Ribeiro Costa.
There are other foreigners in the squad but they were able to register as locals after spending over five years in South Africa. These include Denis Onyango, Brian Onyango and Gaston Sirino.
"So, for now management and the technical team have reached an agreement that Nasir and Lunga could be the ones deregistered to create space for not only Esquivel but other players as well. When the season restarts next week these two should have been deregistered according to the club's plans," the source told Soccer Laduma.
A second Siya source added that the plan could have been to loan out these two players together with Mendieta but all factors didn't work out in January.
"The other thing that was a problem were the teams which were supposed to get these players on loan. There was interest in all the three like Mendieta, Lunga and Nasir but things didn't work out before the closing of the transfer window period and now the only solution is to deregister the two.
"The other problem is that they are still on contracts until next year June. So it's either they terminate their contracts and they become free agents or be stuck with them until the next transfer window period after the season while they are deregistered but still getting paid. That's the situation right now," the source added.
Soccer Laduma contacted Sundowns for comment but no response was received from the club while preparing this story.
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