JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Former Zimbabwe captain Peter Ndlovu might have dodged a financial bullet after the Johannesburg High Court reduced the amount of child support one of the mothers of his 13 children was demanding.

The Mamelodi Sundowns manager had been ordered by a lower court to pay almost R30,000 after the mother of two of his children approached the Johannesburg Magistrates’ Court last year.

The mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of their children, was demanding R29,845 per month from the former Highlanders, Coventry City and Sheffield United star. Ndlovu appealed that order in June last year, asking the court to reduce the amount. He told the court that the maintenance the mother of two was demanding would be detrimental to his 11 other children he pays maintenance for.

The High Court subsequently granted the mother R12,000 in maintenance and ordered that it be deducted from Ndlovu’s salary.

“I have 13 children, including the two with the first respondent,” Ndlovu told the court.

“I am obliged to contribute and see to the maintenance of all my 13 children. I earn a monthly salary which is utilised for my own living expenses, needs, necessities and liabilities, as well as to contribute to my dependants’ expenses and other obligations.

“I can simply not afford a deduction of R29,845 per month from my salary,” read the 49-year-old’s court application.

He said the mother had approached the Johannesburg Magistrates Court without alerting him to the legal proceedings.

“I approached the maintenance court at the earliest opportunity given my work commitments – on June 10, 2021 – in order to establish how the order was obtained without my having any knowledge of the proceedings and to determine how the arrears were calculated,” he wrote in his court papers.

According to the court order, Ndlovu was already more than R94,000 in maintenance arrears. The former striker who left the UK to retire at Sundowns, said there was never any meaningful relationship with the mother, apart from the two encounters that remitted in the birth of the children.

As a result of these encounters, two minor children were born between the respondent and me.

He said: “I was not informed by the respondent about the pregnancies or the subsequent births of our children. The first time I heard of the children was when she instituted maintenance proceedings against me in 2016.

“There is no communication between the respondent and me. We share no relationship and there is no contact between us.”

He also said he had no contact with the children, as their mother was denying him access to them. – City Press