Lekgwathi doesn’t deserve this

In South Africa, professional football players earn a decent amount of money but unfortunately for most not enough to retire comfortably and never have to look for work again. In fact, the majority of players don’t even officially retire – they spend the remaining years of their careers bouncing around from club to club attending trials before eventually giving up when they can’t find suitors.

In South African football it’s hard to voluntary retire when you have bills to pay and that is why players have to look for permanent employment in order to continue to provide for their families.

And even those playing for the so-called big clubs like Mamelodi Sundowns, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates do not retire rich like European players playing in top leagues such as England, Italy, Spain, Germany and France.

When people think of professional football players, they think about fast cars, glitz and glamour, but the truth is that life of a South African player is a lot more difficult than people realise.

And that is why is why it was so heart-breaking to see the news about the senseless vandalising and looting at Lucky Lekgwathi’s restaurant in Gauteng recently.

Lekgwathi is a humble, honest and hardworking person who battled his way up the pyramid of South African football. If there is one person who paid his dues in local football, it’s him.

He started his career at modest Real Rovers before joining Ria Stars in 1999. And when Ria Stars were bought out by the PSL in 2001 – due to the League reducing the number of teams from 18 to 16 – he was fortunate enough to be signed by Orlando Pirates.

And it was with Pirates where his legend status grew as he helped the team win countless trophies, including the famous ‘Double Treble’.

Lekgwathi never played overseas, and all his hard-earned money was made in the PSL. He was still wise enough to save it and invest in business as he opened a clothing brand and a restaurant called ‘Grootman’ in Kliptown, Soweto earlier this year.

And when the selfish acts of looting and vandalising started in some parts of the country, unfortunately his three months old restaurant was one of the places that was destroyed. He will now be forced to start all over again.

Orlando Pirates legend Lucky Lekgwathi’s restaurant was destroyed by looters during the recent unrest.

“After playing for 20 years working hard, I sacrificed a lot. I saved money, started some businesses and they didn’t do well – and this one was starting to do well and people destroyed it like it was nothing. It took me four months to build a store and it took a few seconds to destroy it. To receive the call and to go and look at the store, it was sad, I even cried. I opened the business to support my family and people just destroyed it like that,” an emotional Lekgwathi told SABC.

South Africa is a democratic society where citizens are free to protest and voice their unhappiness, but unfortunately looting and destroying people’s businesses is just not one of them. The very same people who destroyed Lekgwathi’s business will be asking, ‘why didn’t he save money?’ if he struggles financially.

Lekgwathi doesn’t deserve what happened to him, and the same goes for all other businesses too.

Zola Doda