Sad to see Kick Off magazine’s demise!
It was with a great deal of sadness and disbelief to learn that our biggest rivals, Kick Off magazine, would be closing up, at least the print side of things while their digital and social media platforms will continue, after 28 years of covering local and international football. This is shattering and game-changing news, complete-ly!
While this may seem odd to an ordinary reader and football supporters, coming from the editor of a rival publication, losing Kick Off magazine is not good news at all because this is a magazine that kept us on our toes. This is a magazine that we’ve been in stiff competition with, after being avid readers of both publications from high school days, for some of us, only to join the respective teams further down the line. For the two publications to become bitter rivals was nothing per-sonal but to the benefit of South African football and our readers because we real-ly pushed each other and you’re only as good as your opposition. The same princi-ple applies even on the field of play, which is why Mamelodi Sundowns can’t be happy to see both Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs struggling and sometimes not even close to challenging them for silverware. You can’t have those two powerhouses not competitive enough and think all is well. At face value, it would be nice for Sundowns’ supporters to enjoy their team’s dominance because everyone wants to be associated with winners. However, proper football people will understand that there’s not much to learn without tough and sustainable competition and this is, by no means, disrespect to other teams who have pushed Downs to the limit at times. Good competition is what propels one to reach their best because they know someone is watching and there is a lot at stake.
South African football history will tell you that there’s a reason Amakhosi, Buccaneers and the Brazilians are called the Big Three of South African football. One can even extend this to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who have continued to force each other to be better each and every season to the benefit of all those that watch them around the globe. It is the same in the media industry because there are many other media outlets, but there’s always been two football-only print publications that stood the test of time and that’s Soccer Laduma and Kick Off. That’s where our competition, on the field, comes from, but we’ve aways maintained a good relationship off the field because it was never personal. What some people fail to comprehend is the simple fact that there is no right or wrong way of doing things, it is all about taking the good from everyone and putting it together for the readers to enjoy. It is an open secret that even though we’re com-petitors, Soccer Laduma and Kick Off are actually sister publications who both operate under the bigger banner of Media24.
So, to see Kick Off magazine fold is really not a nice feeling because it minimises the much-needed competition and takes away from the rivalry that existed be-tween the two publications. More than anything, the staunch readers of the publi-cation will suffer because this leaves a void that cannot be filled by anyone. Hav-ing been part of this industry for a long time now, I know the decision to shut down the print version of Kick Off was not taken overnight. It would have been a long and strenuous process with all avenues explored to keep the magazine afloat. The reality is that tough economic trading conditions and financial pressure is real. The high increase of fuel prices means that distribution costs for print titles are sky-rocketing. Add to this the increase in the price of paper which all print titles need, and the picture starts to become clearer. In response to increased costs of putting a print title out there, the cover price of print titles inevitably has to increase to make them
viable, and sometimes these increases reach levels that readers simply can’t meet. Print is under pressure. The digital world and the hunger for instant news is taking over and people are moving with the times. So, the silver lining here is that Kick Off will live on as a digital-only brand. Having said that, there are those who will undoubtedly feel hard done by the magazine’s demise. We extend our sincere words of comfort to them because we can only imagine how they feel about this loss. I can assure you, having been in contact with Kick Off’s editor and colleague, Zola Doda, no effort was spared in trying to preserve the publication, but it had to fold, eventually.
That’s why we remain so indebted to our wonderful and loyal readers because, from time to time, we have found ourselves in the same position as Kick Off, where we had to increase our cover price, but you remained behind us and under-stood. It is never easy to strike the balance between making your publication as affordable as possible and maintaining a viable business. You’ve truly held our hand through dark times and understood whenever we were forced to increase the price, which is something no one wants to have to do. We can only thank you for your unwavering support and words can’t really express our gratitude. We can on-ly hope you know and understand just how important you are to us. Without your support, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We count on you to see us through the rough times, like you’ve always done, and in return we will continue to provide you with relevant and great content. It is also our responsibility to go out of our way to secure partnerships that will benefit you and help safeguard your favourite publication.
It is for this reason that we are happy to announce our partnership with Toyota in search for South Africa’s next Fortuner Challenger. Different media houses will have their representatives in this competition, and we therefore extend an invita-tion to our readers to please enter and stand a chance to win a brand-new Toyota Fortuner by going to https://toyota.m24lifestyle. co.za, where all the necessary in-formation will be available. To sum it up, those who will be entering this competi-tion, as Soccer Laduma readers, will have to be physically fit to withstand the grueling challenge that will be undertaken as you join four sports heroes. This is an exciting opportunity for one of our readers to emerge as an eventual winner and we are really excited about the possibility of one of our own being crowned the champion and driving away in a brand spanking new Fortuner. There are also a number of other prizes up for grabs, including a mountain bike and kit bundle worth over R54 000. You just have to visit the website to enter the #FORTUN-ERCHALLENGE2022 event and stand a chance to be the eventual winner.
Cheers, VeeJay