Tough times hit local clubs

“It’s becoming tighter and tighter and difficult,” said Premier Soccer League (PSL) chair Irvin Khoza during a long-winded response when asked how SA’s football market is surviving the tough economic times.

A week ago Khoza was in a jovial mood, telling a few football journalists in Johannesburg he’s found a new sponsor, the Motsepe Foundation, for the National First Division after the PSL lost GladAfrica as its second tier league sponsors.

With the 2022-2023 season about the start, Khoza said he had to think on his feet and hardly had time to consult members of the PSL executive before he made a call to SA billionaire and Confederation of African Football (Caf) president Patrice Motsepe, asking him to come to the league’s rescue.

It was easy for Khoza to phone Motsepe because they come a long way together and both have been involved in the business of football and other ventures – and, on top of that, they’re “family friends”.

Had those elements in the relationship been missing, the deal many not have materialised, especially in the current economic climate. Khoza and Motsepe spoke on Thursday night last week and by Friday morning the sponsorship was announced.  

The five-year deal makes the Motsepe family one of the biggest backers of SA football as it already has the Kay Motsepe Schools Cup and ABC Motsepe League (SA third division) under its banner.

“The challenge we’re having is no longer that we’re going to give the sponsors the (advertising) boards, interviews and the appearances. It is what difference are we going make to their bottom line (profits),” said Khoza.

“That’s why I said that this Motsepe Foundation (sponsorship) is unique. They (Motsepes) understand the significance of football in the spiritual life of our people.”

For Khoza to take only a few hours to clinch a deal with Motsepe is highly unusual. The PSL, for instance, took more than two years to find Carling Black Label as a sponsor for its third cup competition after Telkom didn’t renew in 2019.

This week the PSL announced it had signed a three-year deal with the brewing company for a cup competition that will start in 2023.

“What is worse in the sponsorship environment is the segmentation of the sponsorship  because every sponsor you talk to wants to extend their rights. All of them are watching how many transaction volumes are you making to the sponsorship,” said Khoza.

Amid the gloom caused by the current recession, Motsepe offers hope, saying it was at times like these that football had to be supported.

“We have to be optimistic. We’re an optimistic people and football gives us hope. Football creates excitement and entertainment. Football in Barcelona, for instance, is so much more than what’s happening on the field. It is part of the culture, part of entertainment, part of jobs and part of the upliftment of people,” Motsepe said.

The challenge we’re having is no longer that we’re going to give the sponsors the (advertising) boards, interviews and the appearances. It is what difference are we going make to their bottom line (profits)

But while Khoza and the PSL appear to have secured the league’s foreseeable future, the same cannot be said of the PSL clubs, which appear to be very cautious in recruiting for the coming season.

Some big name players like former Bafana Bafana captain Thulani Hlatshwayo, Thabang Monare, Luvuyo Memela, Ben Motshwari and many others are yet to find clubs after they were off-loaded by their respective outfits at the end of last season.  

“What we saw this year – which is unprecedented in terms of numbers of players released by the teams – is the function of the state of the game itself and how the game is being run. It also reflects on how poorly the clubs have done over the years in terms of how they recruit, retain and develop the players,” Sgwili Gumede, founder of Sport Boardroom, told the Sunday Times.

“The current situation demands that football or any sporting code must work harder to attract the sponsorship. The reality is that sponsors are still there. The economy is tough, but those who’re working much harder to attract the sponsors are attracting the sponsors.” 

SuperSport United CEO Stan Matthews is not surprised that some PSL clubs have released up to 10 players in the off-season as they try to cut costs. “When people are cutting jobs and budgets and everything like that, the first thing to go to is the sports sponsorship or what companies deemed to be ‘nice-to-have stuff’,” said Matthews.

SuperSport, who this week announced the return of Gavin Hunt as their head coach, are one of the clear examples of PSL clubs that have had to change their model in the face of the changing economy.

In the past year, SuperSport have sold their top and experienced players in Grant Kekana, Teboho Mokoena, Aubrey Modiba and Sipho Mbule to big-spending rivals Mamelodi Sundowns.

With the club not in a rush to replace these players, speculation reached fever pitch last week that they were about to sell the club itself. But Matthews said this was never part of their strategy. “We are where we are at the moment because we took a view three years ago that the market was going to become tough,” he said.

"We’ve found our model and our model is to develop good young players. We must be given credit because we’ve not done what the other clubs have done (releasing as many as 10 players).”