‘Never thought I will be treated this way… I’m only human’ – Bafana Bafana defender Xulu

Bafana Bafana defender Siyanda Xulu felt demeaned after being denied entry to Israel to join Hapoel Tel Aviv for pre-season.

The experienced defender was held at the airport and had to go back to South Africa after the Israeli officials felt the documents he had was not legitimate.

His club has been faulted for the situation that led to the player’s unsuccessful journey.

“As you know South Africa is on the red list, however, Siyanda has got a work permit and he has been inoculated for Covid-19. So from a Covid-perspective everything was in place,” Paul Mitchell, who is the player’s agent, told iDiski Times.

“He also had the permission of entry from the Ministry of Health, but the problem was that one of the documents given to him in the Hebrew language from the club, was a document that immigration felt was a forged document or a document that wasn’t in good standing.

“Obviously that document was given to Siyanda by the club, so somebody at the club is responsible. Unfortunately because of that document, they denied him entry and he’s had to come home now.

“The South African embassy tried their utmost best to help and were very good, but unfortunately this is the rule.

“Until we get to the bottom of the document with his club, we’ll just wait for 24-48 hours to see what the next correspondence from the club will be.”

The agent has further explained how the player was affected by the occurrences at their airport.

“[Xulu stated it was] ‘a day to forget, never thought I’ll be treated this way when I am only human.’ It was a bad experience,” Mitchell continued.

“He’s not banned from entry in Israel, but obviously this had an effect on him. We’re going to give it 24 hours and let Siyanda rest because now he’s back in South Africa.

“Maybe, for him to go back to Israel, he first has to spend 14 days in another country that is not on the red list.

“It wasn’t nice, it wasn’t comfortable because he arrived at 04:00 in the morning, and he only flew out at 01:00 the next day. He spent the whole day in an immigration room, it wasn’t nice.”