Motsepe Foundation goes big on schools football
SAFA president Danny Jordaan says the recent donation from the Motsepe Foundation towards schools football dove-tails well with their plans for ‘Vision 2030’.
Late last year, Safa’s Vision 2022 circuit came to an end as the association had to re-evaluate their plans for the growth of South African football, birthing Vision 2030.
Part of their new plan includes Bafana Bafana improving their spot in the Fifa rankings, something that’ll require them to qualify for major tournaments.
Moreover, the association wants to put more focus on women’s football by having at least one million female footballers, especially after Banyana Banyana’s recent success.
Those aspirations received a major boost yesterday as the Motsepe Foundation donated R150-million to schools for football, netball, African Choral and indigenous music.
The relationship between the foundation and the Department of Basic Education is set to run for five years, with R30m issued by the foundation every year.
Football, which will include both boys and girls tournaments at primary and secondary school level, will be the main recipient of the funds as they’ll receive around R20m per year.
This announcement was made by the Motsepe Foundation co-founders Patrice Motsepe and Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe, who were joined by government and provincial officials, at the Sandton Convention Centre.
And for Jordaan the new funds will go a long way in ensuring that they improve the standard of football, for both males and females, at youth level.
“In part of Vision 2030, we have the School of Excellence or High Performance centre for girls and women at Tuks University, but we want to strengthen that,” Jordaan said.
“Eighty percent of the Banyana players come from the HP centre. So if you see the quality of the players we produced, it is clear that we have to replicate that model on the boys' side.
“So we’ve already made the commitment after discussing with Fifa that we want to place boys from Under-16 at our national technical centre.
“You’ll see the boys there. And you’ve heard the foundation making the commitment of taking them there and showing them everything that side.”
The inauguration of an academy at the association’s technical centre will also be approved by Fifa's Chief of Global Football Development officer Arsene Wenger during his visit to the country in the next few weeks.
“He’s on his way,” Jordaan said on Wenger’s visit to the country. “But the next event for Fifa is the congress in Kigali, Rwanda at the end of March.
“And there Gianni Infantino will be elected for the third time – he’s unopposed. And of course, we’ll have further discussion with Arsene Wenger there.
“And then, I think, a week or two after that, we’ll see him in our country. We must just finalise the days, and we’ll probably do that when we meet in Kigali. He’s willing to come.”