No better signing at the moment would have signalled a real statement of intent from Kaizer Chiefs than announcing the arrival of Keagan Dolly.
It’s a massive coup for the Glamour Boys to have managed to add a player who spent four years in the French Ligue 1 and, when at his genuine best, is Bafana Bafana’s key figure.
Yes, there’s a but coming…
At 28, Dolly shouldn’t be returning to the Premier Soccer League so soon, my estimate is that he probably could have gone another four years at the highest level in Europe – perhaps not even in one of the most reputable leagues in the world, but any place where he could still compete, earn good money, have a good life and just simply enjoy his football.
Some argued Dolly threw in the towel when there was a mutual agreement with Montpellier not to renew his contract in May and that he settled for the comfort of coming back home for his swansong.
That is far from it, in my opinion.
One club that should be held accountable for Dolly not having longevity in Europe is Mamelodi Sundowns, his employers for three years prior to his transfer to France in January 2017 following protracted negotiations to have him released.
This story might have been lost in the archives, but those who have monitored Dolly’s progress closely will quickly concede that going from Chloorkop to France was a huge step up that the player, though incredibly talented, might not have been ready for.
Yes, the fact that the coach who initially signed him got sacked – as well as three others in that same season – and the lengthy injury in his second year there should be factored in.
However, Dolly should have gone to Greece and joined Olympiakos, a big club with a relatively rich heritage playing in a lesser league.
There, the winger would have hit the ground running and been a regular almost immediately, while in France Dolly would have probably needed time to adjust, which is exactly how that scenario played out!
But Sundowns held out for more money, insisting that the buy-out clause of around R12-million in the player’s contract was wrong and it should instead be in the region of R30-million, at the exchange rate then, for there to be a deal between the two clubs.
As you can imagine, Olympiakos deemed the valuation too high and Dolly missed out on a chance to go into a league where he would have been an important player from the onset, to one where he started out as a squad player and had to work his way up.
You see, if he’d gone to Greece, his prospects would have been a lot more favourable in terms of parachuting him to some of the best clubs in world football – Olympiakos consistently feature in either the Uefa Champions League or Europa League.
Montpellier last played in one of those tournaments during the 2012-13 season, long before Dolly signed on the dotted line.
He made a lot more money in France, there’s no doubt about that because some Greek clubs are notorious for skipping salaries and the South African would have probably come in at a lower base, but the earning potential if he moved on would have made him stinking rich.
As he returns to begin a new chapter at Naturena, one hopes the club where he began his career in the youth ranks realise they robbed Dolly of a chance at arguably being part of an elite list of Mzansi’s best ever player exports…
