Being forced into early retirement was not a train smash for former Mamelodi Sundowns defender Rheece Evans, who has spent the last few years building a logistics company which has now secured a big contract with chemicals and energy company Sasol.
Aware that he needed to have something to bring in an income after retirement, Evans and his brother went into the transport business while he was still playing. It turned out to be a brilliant idea because when he went into early retirement after sustaining an injury, he did not need to start from scratch. The business he started, called Trans Modal Freight, was already there.
READ: Evans: Komphela's Influence On My Sundowns Move
Outside of Sundowns, Evans played for Maritzburg United, Ajax Cape Town and a stint at Highlands Park ended before it could even start.
"When Ajax got relegated, I chose not to stay with the club. I had a stint at Highlands Park, when Owen (da Gama) was there. He asked me to come there. I was there for pre-season and I got kicked in a game and tore my MCL (Medial Collateral Ligament) and my meniscus. I had to go for surgery and when I came back I just wasn't the same. I was turning 30 that year, I think, and I thought that I did not want to spend the next few years of my career pushing through injury, so I thought I should just hang up my boots," he said to the Siya crew.
"My brother and I own a logistics company. We receive cargo in our warehouse. We have quite a large warehouse. We receive cargo on a monthly basis and then our trucks...we have a contract with Sasol, which we worked very hard on. We load cargo, generally across Durban and Johannesburg and it goes across the border. We service countries like Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Swaziland. We load various types of products and we transport it through to different customers. Obviously the warehousing aspect falls into it. We receive cargo and our clients who own the cargo tell us where it needs to be dispatched."
The transition when he retired, Evans admitted, was not easy. He was used to waking up in the morning to go to training and he swapped that for sitting in the office and working on planning and operations.
"When you start any company, in the first couple of years you are always have to invest a lot and work a lot and struggle a lot. But now, it's actually going very well," he said.
READ: Sundowns Monitoring SSU Star
"Leaving football was not easy. I took about a three month break and I started getting into the transport business from there. I kind of knew that I was always going to get into it as a back-up plan, so I started the process while I was playing. it took a while to get used to life away from football. It's not an easy transition because when you play football, your mind is conditioned to train and focus on your body and focus on the game you are playing that weekend. So, when you are sitting in the office, you have to condition your mind to things like planning and operations. It's different."
You must be SIGNED IN to read and post comments.
