The story behind the scenes

How Downs have helped Matsatsantsa

To get a proper understanding of how Sundowns have come to the aid of SuperSport United in recent seasons, Matsatsantsa CEO Stan Matthews has given insight into how the sale of their stars to Masandawana has helped them balance the books.

“Our sales to Sundowns have helped us on the business side to balance the books and reinvest in some great future talent. It obviously hurts us on the field of play in the short term because you can’t just replace high-quality players like Modiba, Mokoena or Ronwen overnight,” Matthews told the Siya crew.

“The reality is that there are only three clubs in South Africa that have the financial muscle to spend the money necessary to secure the very best players in the transfer market. The rest of us are in the free agent market or try to buy from the lower divisions, where the asking prices are still realistic.

“For a club like ours, player sales have been an important source of funding, especially through COVID when sponsorships have dried up. But now that things are normalizing, we have secured our best talent at the club for the next four years and we will look to keep the core of this young group together.

“We will be announcing new sponsorships in the coming months and that will assist us to hold on to our best talent for a while longer before the Big Three come hunting. The key is to make sure you get a return on investment and sell at the right time for reinvesting in new players and ensuring the sustainability of the club.”

Leopards in the mix too

An insider at Black Leopards, who are in the Motsepe Foundation Championship, painted a different picture on why it often makes sense to sell their top talent to the Tshwane giants.

Sundowns secured the services of Lesedi Kapinga and Khuliso Mudau from Lidoda Duvha in recent years, and the Limpopo-based side made money from the sales of Raymond Monama, Rodney Ramagalela and Tiyani Mabunda to the Tshwane giants close to a decade ago.

“It’s a funny situation. Sometimes we’d rather sell a player, as opposed to letting his contract run down. Because there’s no open honesty like there is in Europe, where you are renewing players’ contracts two or three years before they lapse. Here, people are secretive and sometimes agents and players don’t have proper relationships with chairmen,” a well-placed source at Leopards said.

“So, you have a situation where if you don’t sell the player, he will sign a pre-contract and you will lose him for free. We did not make money from Kapinga because his dad or uncle let the contract lapse. They did not want to renew, and they gave us stories. Then all of a sudden, you heard via people (that he has signed for Sundowns). Even with (Siphelele) Ntshangase, we were forced to sell him to Baroka because he was waiting until December to sign (a pre-contract) with Chiefs. (But) we made money with Raymond Monama, Tiyani Mabunda and Rodney Ramagalela.”

Will Chiefs & Pirates join Sundowns?

For the most part, Sundowns have driven the transfer market in recent years, with Chiefs and Pirates being conservative with their cheque book. But with the multi-million dollar African Super League on the cards, the cash influx could see the two Soweto giants join the Brazilians in stimulating the domestic transfer market, and in turn aid the smaller clubs’ coffers.

This past window, some of the clubs did benefit from the two respective clubs.

Amakhosi are believed to have paid around R10 million for the services of Ashley Du Preez and R5 million for Zitha Kwinika, a player that came from their development. The club is understood to have also spent on the Swallows FC trio of Dillon Solomons, George Matlou and Kamohelo Mahlatsi, as well as Yusuf Maart from Sekhukhune United.

Pirates, meanwhile, were also spenders in the market. They forked out transfer fees for Eva Nga, Ndabayithethwa Ndlondlo, Azola Matrose, Nkosinathi Sibisi, Sipho Chaine and Tapelo Xoki.

Others who have benefited

Over the years, clubs have made profit from the sale of players to Sundowns and it’s helped in ensuring they balance the books. SuperSport, Maritzburg and Leopards have been mentioned, but there are others too.

Before the recent sale of Mashego, Cape Town City sold Aubrey Ngoma, Kermit Erasmus and Surprise Ralani to Sundowns. When Highlands Park sold their status to TS Galaxy, they made sure that Peter Shalulile and Mothobi Mvala were not part of the deal so that they would be able to sell the players to the highest bidder, and that was Sundowns.

Before they were sold, Free State Stars and Celtic also had their fair share of business with the defending league champions. Stars made money from Edward Manqele and Lucky Mohomi’s moves to Downs, while Siwelele pocketed from selling Hlompho Kekana, Thabo Nthethe and Neo Maema to the Tshwane giants.