Ajax Cape Town management decided against its players attending the funeral of their fallen soldier Cecil Lolo, the central defender who lost his life in a car accident two weeks ago.
Ajax organised two memorial services for Lolo and expressed their sadness at losing the key player. Lolo was laid to rest in the Eastern Cape over the weekend.
Club CEO Ari Efstathiou and coach Roger De Sa were the only members of the Ajax family who attended the funeral. Speaking in a radio interview Efstathiou claimed it was a decision taken by all the parties involved.
“Everything we done was in conversation with everybody, it was a decision we took as a group,” Efstathiou said. “Roger and I attended the funeral, we flew on Sunday morning at 8:30 on the first available flight, and we travelled for three hours (after landing) and only managed to get there after 12 o’clock.”
The CEO believe that attending the funeral would have been much easier if the funeral service was held at a convenient venue. Ajax met all of Lolol’s family requests in preparation for the funeral according to the CEO.
“If it was closer it would have been appropriate for everybody, that’s the reason we had two memorial services because we want to make sure that everybody had a chance to pay their respects to Cecil. Whatever we did was in consultation with the family, we asked them what they needed and what they required, we tried to help them as much as possible. The transport issues with regards to were the funeral was were not easy, we wouldn’t have been able to get a bus through there.”
