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Jose Ferreira has come out in support of Gavin Hunt by insisting the Wits coach he did nothing to hurt Amr Gamal's career.
The 28-year-old El Ahly striker reportedly wanted to leave the Clever Boys for Ruben Kazan while on a loan spell with the club during the 2017/18 PSL season.
Having struggled for game-time at Wits, he was seemingly desperate for the switch to improve his chances of playing for Egypt at the 2018 World Cup.
Gamal said Hunt had treated him badly and hurled racist insults at the player.
Hunt refuted these claims, and now Wits director Ferreira has backed up the head coach.
"If there was an offer from Ruben Kazan, I have absolutely no knowledge of it," said the Wits chief executive officer as quoted by KickOff.
"And one would think that at a time when we were prepared to release Amr Gamal to a Finnish club HJK Helsinki if he did have an offer from Ruben Kazan then he should blame El Ahly for it (a move not materialising).
"The second thing, anybody who knows Gavin Hunt knows that he's not a racist. This is nothing but a player who needs to justify his failures. Since he came from Egypt and El Ahly to Bidvest Wits, it's been one failure after another.
"Thirdly, he still owes the club money for destroying his flat, and we’ve got the pictures to prove it, and he signed an acknowledgement of debt for it.
"So, this is a player trying to justify his failure to go to the World Cup. And you must understand that at the time when he was on loan to us if he had gone to the World Cup, we would have received compensation from FIFA of over $100 000 (around R1.8-million at current exchange rate).
"Why would we as a club not want him to go the World Cup? Amr Gamal's got nobody but himself to blame for where he is today in the soccer wilderness, and it’s really sad."
When Gamal eventually left Wits after eight months, he joined Finnish side HJK Helsinki on loan, ahead of a return to El Ahly.
- TEAMtalk media
