There’s always been an agenda

“The stress of running a football club is no longer there for him.”

“Where does the instruction come from to chase AmaZulu like this?”

Painful as it may be at times, change is inevitable, and when AmaZulu FC’s ownership exchanged hands, the news was met with a fair bit of trepidation by some of the club’s followers and South African football fans in general. To the new owners’ credit, if anything, the Durban-based side has punched above its weight, emerging last season as a dark horse in the title race, eventually earning a spot to the coveted CAF Champions League. Now it’s to improve on those exploits, and former general manager of the club, Lunga Sokhela, has no doubt Benni McCarthy’s charges will pick up from where they left off. Born and bred in Maphumulo, Sokhela, not one to mince his words, as evidenced by his posts on his official social media accounts, is however unimpressed with what he calls an agenda against AmaZulu, placing blame on the door of the PSL for this. In this interview with Soccer Laduma’s Masebe Qina, the businessman shares his feelings on club chairpersons serving in the League’s executive committee. Sokhela reveals the projects he is involved with these days and what his father, a former Usuthu chairman, is up to these days.

Masebe Qina: Mr Sokhela, what have you been up to since you parted ways with AmaZulu FC last year after the club was bought by Zungu Investments Company?

Lunga Sokhela: I’m involved with a couple of other things in other projects and getting some products into retail and working closely with the Spar group. Also, there’s a bi-project that we are looking at doing that converts sugar to plastic. It’s all about the whole bio-plastic story where you are not using petroleum-based plastic, which is best for the environment. So, those are the two major projects that I am directly working on. As a family enterprise, there’s also quite a big property project that we are getting off the ground. There’s a lot on our plate.

MQ: How has life away from football been treating you?

LS: Look, football is a different life. You travel a lot and you meet a lot of people. At times, you find yourself in three different cities in one week, and between that, you are on your own and you work. It’s a very dynamic industry and a dynamic job. Where I am now, it’s more structured and when I travel, it’s one trip in and out once or twice a month. At times, yes, you miss the hustle and bustle, but you also like the stability, especially me now, I’ve got a family and all those things, so it’s nice in that sense. It’s nice being a spectator, but you miss the behind-the-scenes involvement, being in the change room with the guys, going through your ups and downs together and fighting together. That will never leave your system, but I have adjusted now, although it took a while to adjust.

MQ: What is former Usuthu chairman and your father, Dr Patrick Sokhela, up to these days?

LS: He’s good now. I think it came at the right time – he’s no longer 40 or 45 years old. He’s basically semi-retired, so it’s good that the stress of running a football club is no longer there for him. It’s good that he has hung up the chairmanship and is relaxed now and looking at doing other things more pleasurable and less stressful. We run the major parts of the business and he is far more relaxed.

MQ: Let’s move on and talk about the club. What do you think of the progress under current president Sandile Zungu and his management?

LS: They have done extremely well. I used to tell the guys, even before the talk of the sale, that when you run a club, you have to leave a legacy. Football is not that professional and it’s very individualistic. I used to tell people about Barcelona. Barcelona have their way of doing things, whether it’s going to be Pep (Guardiola) coming in to coach or whether it’s going to be whoever – there’s a recipe that they use. The foundations were left at the club (AmaZulu) and obviously Zungu has experience in business and it was a very soft landing. The systems were all there and there’s nothing that they needed to come up with. It was just to take what had already been done and carry on with it, which is a completely different experience compared to what we had. When we came on board, there was no AmaZulu Football Club. We bought Zulu Royals from the NFD (National First Division, now GladAfrica Championship). There was no office and there was no training field and there was nothing, it was just a name. We had to develop relationships with sponsors and all those things. I’m glad for them and I think they have done extremely well to continue on the same trajectory, as well as keeping people who worked under us. They found value in them, and nobody was fired.

MQ: What do you think of the team’s start this season after their achievements of the 2020/21 campaign?

LS: It’s always difficult when you come from a season like that after finishing second last season. A lot of work was done (by us) when the new guys took over with 10 days left to the season. The only thing that they did was to bring Benni McCarthy, and all the foundation work had been laid. The preparations were done mentally and physically for the season to come. Now, everything is starting afresh. But when you look at the quality of what they have got, the players, coaching staff and management, they will turn the corner just like they did last season, like when they won eight games in a row. They are more than capable of doing that. Every season will have its ups and downs and it’s just for you to keep a cool head. I truly believe that they can perform like they did

last season.

MQ: The Durbanbased outfit has been unfortunate with some questionable refereeing decisions in some instances, like in the recent match against Kaizer Chiefs… LS: That thing was a complete embarrassment. You tell people in business to come and invest in football and then you give them those experiences, and that is a problem. We experienced it also, if you remember the game where we had two disallowed goals. This time, it was an absolute embarrassment of a penalty. You say to yourself, these coincidences and all these things… it’s not good. That thing was just absolutely shocking. It was not good as an advertisement for South African football, not good for giving confidence to sponsors and not good for giving confidence to potential buyers of football clubs and investors into football. I mean, the fact that nobody from Bloemfontein was willing to buy Bloemfontein Celtic, such a good brand, should tell you that people are sceptical about the football business.

MQ: Do you suspect that there is an agenda against AmaZulu?

LS: There has always been an agenda against AmaZulu Football Club. If you look at the history of the club and if you look at how we are structured in our football … and when you have your fiercest competitors running the League, you are definitely going to have problems. That’s why we have these things called codes of corporate governance. You can’t be a player and a referee. That can never happen. If you are feeling aggrieved as AmaZulu Football Club, who do you go and cry to? You are going to cry to your fiercest competitor? It just doesn’t make any sense, uyabo (you see)? I’ve said it time and again that AmaZulu have got a problem locally and it will always be an unwanted team. When I say locally, I mean within KZN and Durban, as well as within the bigger structure of the PSL because it’s got a potential to be commercially viable and to be commercially attractive. It will always encounter these problems. The root cause, as I always say, is the governance (of the league). If you have people with contradictory interests… I’ve got an interest in my club and I’ve got an interest in the League… it can never work. There is a complete conflict there. To get back to your question, there’s always been an agenda and even (Mamelodi) Sundowns will tell you, and how they have managed to counter it is that they just had to throw a lot of money. That’s why they can’t be touched because they have got the kind of money to help them. But they will tell you that they are forever experiencing problems with these people that run the League.

MQ: Who are these people you’re talking about?

LS: There has always been an agenda against AmaZulu from mainly the decision makers in the League and from clubs as well. They always get the raw end of the stick. That is something that is not even a secret. It’s something that is there for people to see for themselves. There was a time when I was at the (PSL) DRC literally every week. AmaZulu would sneeze and get charged; AmaZulu would do this, they get charged; AmaZulu would do that, they get charged. It was clear that AmaZulu were targeted. That was my experience and I’m talking about facts here. Those are the things that I can show you. Now, you ask yourself, where does the instruction come from to chase AmaZulu like this? And it can only come from one person, and that’s the prosecutor of the League, but the prosecutor works under instruction. It is what it is, but you must always go to war knowing who your enemies are and who’s going to be fighting, and you just have to deal with it.

MQ: Lastly, you talk about people with interest in clubs and in the League. Do you have names of those people?

LS: Well, the whole Exco (PSL Executive Committee) are club owners. That model is completely wrong. You cannot make an independent decision if you yourself are a club owner. If a decision is going to affect your club in a negative way, you are not going to support whatever that is being decided – it’s as simple as that. There are guidelines in corporate governance whereby you need a non-executive director who has no interests in any club. They will do what is best for the league. Thank you for the chat.