Kaizer Chiefs marketing director Jessica Motaung in bitter war with Siphiwe Tshabalala’s agent

Kaizer Chiefs marketing director Jessica Motaung and football agent Jazzman Mahlakgane are reportedly to be in a tussle over the image rights of Simphiwe Tshabalala.

According to Sunday World, Mahlakgane has allegedly threatened to drag the club to court if the matter was not resolved in his favour.

The publication's two highly placed sources, who have intimate knowledge of the imbroglio, alleged that what lit the blue touch paper was when Chiefs instructed Tshabalala to refrain from driving a sponsored luxury Lexus sedan from Toyota.

But Motaung is said to have red-carded the deal and demanded that Tshabalala drive one of the Toyota vehicles driven by other players as part of the club's sponsorship deal with the car maker.

The Chiefs club official allegedly instructed the midfielder to remove the branding of his foundation from the car. It is alleged that Tshabalala informed Mahlakgane of Motaung's demand and the soccer agent blew his gasket.

"Jazzman told her that contrary to the general claims, Chiefs and all South African clubs don't own the image rights of their players.

"In this case, Chiefs don't own image rights of Shabba and therefore have no right to dictate to him which car he must drive and which one he must not," said the source.

The source said Motaung refused to budge and told Mahlakgane that they own the player's image rights.

"Several meetings were held between Jessica and Jazzman but none of them yielded any fruit. Two weeks ago, Jazzman phoned Bobby Motaung [the club's football manager] and asked him to organise a meeting between him and Jessica to sort this thing out.

"He also pleaded with him to be present in that meeting so that they could resolve this matter. Bobby promised to organise the meeting, which is likely to happen in the next few days," said the source..

Another source said Mahlakgane has threatened to go to court if the matter is not resolved in his favour.

"He is confident that if the matter goes to court, any judge who presides over it will find in his favour or even throw the matter out of court and order the club to pay the legal costs," said the source.

"He [Mahlakgane] said the matter is also affecting Shabba negatively. How do you do that to one of your best players? It's ridiculous. Chiefs must focus on rebuilding the team, instead of targeting players," said the source.

When contacted by Sunday World, Mahlakgane said: "I have no comment on the matter," he said.

Chiefs media officer Vina Maphosa said: "The matter was not brought to our attention as the communication department to communicate out to the public through media channels."

The Motaungs ignored our phone calls and text messages we sent to them.