Ex-addict’s sound advice to players
REFORMED drug addict and former professional footballer Lucas Tlhomelang has called on PSL players to come out and accept they suffer from substance abuse.
His plea follows Thandani Ntshumayelo’s four-year drug ban for testing positive for cocaine, the latest scandal of substance abuse implicating a PSL player.
Tlhomelang was the last PSL player to test positive for cocaine, when in November 2009, he was bust while turning out for Mpumalanga Black Aces and was subsequently banned for two years.
His case followed that of Lucky Maselesele who, while in the books of Maritzburg United in November 2008, tested positive for benzoylecgonine – a metabolite of cocaine – and was banished for two years.
While it turned out difficult to trace Maselesele, Tlhomelang opened up to Sowetan yesterday.
“I came out, admitted that I was an addict and I received help. I am clean now and people have reinstalled their trust in me,” Tlhomelang said, adding he sniffed cocaine at a night club in Johannesburg during a “hectic night out with friends”.
“I don’t want to be judgemental but Ntshumayelo must come out if he needs help. In my case, just one line of cocaine ended my career. I couldn’t support my three kids, my car was repossessed and my hopes of owning a house were dashed.
“I relocated back home to Taung, North West, and I opened up to my mother that I needed help. She took me to church and God gave me a second chance.”
He maintained that Ntshumayelo’s case could be just one out in the public, while many are swept under the carpet.
“Most players are going through a lot but they don’t want to come out, instead they turn to alcohol and drugs,” said Tlhomelang, ironically, a former Pirates player.
The former Jomo Cosmos and Bafana Bafana defender said he was back home involved in motivational talks at schools and conducting coaching clinics.
Tlhomelang was recently coopted to a newly-elected North West Masters and Legends Football Association, a structure formed by former pro players born in the province.
Meanwhile, Maselesele said, in a previous interview, that he used his two-year banishment from the game to further his studies.
He was last employed by a Joburg-based PR company.
Efforts to reach Maselesele were in vain as his number was constantly off.