Sunday, 4th February 2007 at 12:44 pm

Our own little Enron

The first phone call I got on Friday morning was from a rather nervous sports agent, wondering if I’d heard anything about the Fidentia Group, taken under curatorship after millions of Rand were discovered to be missing. So why a sports agent’s interest?

Well, Fidentia has a taste for sporting involvement, and the company’s sponsorship portfolio includes Fidentia Rangers (formerly Manning Rangers, bought for R1.5-million), Fidentia Warriors (the Eastern Cape cricket fanchise, backed to the tune of roughly R5-million), and Boland rugby, which benefits from R15-million. Hence one very worried agent…

Fidentia’s sporting theme extends to employees - former Stormers hooker Martin van Schalkwyk (nicknamed ‘Happy Sindane’ in his playing days, for a disconcerting resemblance) is a director, and Eric Simons, Dave Callaghan, Ernst van Dyk and Meyrick Pringle are also on the Fidentia payroll. So what will become of them, and what will become of the assorted sponsorships?

The curators decide what money goes in and out, and with a lot of the missing money owed to the wives and children of deceased members of the Mineworkers Provident Fund, don’t expect dealing with a Boland flanker or Rangers midfielder’s salary to be top priority. Cue plenty of long faces in Wellington in particular, where Fidentia money funded some big-name signings in the off season - a lot of players and agents will be watching the finance pages tomorrow morning with strong drink firmly in hand.