Meeting him would be something special

“Steve Lekoelea used to live a street up the road from us.”

“To be honest with you, our football is in a sad state of affairs!”

Mmusi Maimane may be popularly known for his political activism, but the former parliamentarian is just as passionate about sport, with Kaizer Chiefs his favourite local football club. In this interview with Soccer Laduma editor Vuyani Joni, the Build One South Africa leader opens up about his love for the Naturena-based outfit. He also shares his thoughts on South African football and what we are doing wrong compared to rugby. The 42-yearold former amateur footballer also talks about his football idol as well as reveals the conversation he had with Itumeleng Khune and Siphiwe Tshabalala.

Vuyani Joni: Bhuti, let’s get straight to it. Firstly, we thank you so much for your time and the opportunity to introduce our readers to people who are passionate about football from different disciplines.

Mmusi Maimane: Alright, not a problem. It is a privilege, honestly.

VJ: You recently posted a football team picture on social media, which got people talking. Please tell us more about that picture?

MM: Ha, ha, ha, you know utat’am (my father) used to play for Dobsonville United Brothers, a very prominent team in Soweto. He was a footballer who was passionate about the game. Literally, growing up, every street in Soweto had a (football) team. Ours was Ontario Football Club and you will remember that during apartheid, Italian football was very popular in the townships. It was more popular than British football and we didn’t follow too much of the Premier League sides and other leagues. We had Napoli and others, so I’ve always loved football and, as boys, we’d play in the streets and form clubs, which had levels all the way up to the senior team.

VJ: Interestingly, Ontario, at some stage, wore the Bafana Bafana Kappa kit.

MM:

Ha, ha, ha, that’s so true. We were playing typical amateur football and this was before 1994 and the new dawn. My nickname was ‘Sister Monica’ and you will remember the former Jomo Cosmos midfielder (Lawrence Siyangaphi), so I was named after him. I used to play as a right winger and football has always been part of my life. I even attended the semi-finals of the 1996 Afcon, although I never got to attend the final. We used to attend games regularly and I grew up supporting Amakhosi (Kaizer Chiefs). If you’re born in Soweto, you must choose which side are you going to take between Phefeni (Chiefs) and Orlando (Pirates). Chiefs was winning everything when I was growing up, although players like Raphael Chukwu from Mamelodi Sundowns used to hurt us. The first Chiefs game I attended was when they were playing Giant Blackpool, at Orlando Stadium. Those guys went for three weekends where they beat Chiefs 4-1, Pirates 4-2 and I just can’t remember the third team which was also given a 4. They were literally hammering everyone and one of the first games to ever watch my favourite team turned out to be a disaster performance.

VJ: Eish, not a good start at all.

MM: Indeed. So, football has always been part of my life. We didn’t really have a choice but to play football, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to socialise with the community because you wouldn’t have friends.

VJ: We presume there were not many options, with football being the most popular sport in the Black communities, followed by boxing and rugby…

MM: When Dobsonville became part of the Roodepoort municipality, they built tennis courts in Soweto. I grew up with cousins who were also interested in tennis and that meant I’d play foot

ball and tennis, so that was the only alternative. If you go to Dobsonville Stadium today, there’s land that lies vacant nex t to it, which used to be a tennis club.

VJ: Back to ‘Sister Monica’, your idol, did it ever happen that you got to meet up with him?

MM: No, I never had an opportunity to meet him. I don’t even know where he is today, which is unfortunate.

VJ: Soccer Laduma will definitely make that meeting happen. You can’t be named after him and never get to share a moment with him.

MM: Really? I’d love to do that because the man was skillful and a great player, so meeting him would be something special. I’d really love to meet him. You know, I was writing a book and I mentioned him as someone I was named after, so you can imagine what meeting him would feel like. For ex - ample, my father was and still is called ‘Jazzy Queen’ after Harold Legodi because he played like him. Jazzy Queen’s son happened to attend a school I was teaching in and I got to meet the legend through a parents’ event and I told him about my father being named after him. To this day, you’ll never hear anyone call my father by his name. If you’re looking for directions to his house, you tell them you’re looking for Jazzy’s house and they will know who you are talking about.

VJ: You have a lot of catching up to do with the legendary ‘Sister Monica’. Was playing professional football something in your mind, growing up?

MM: Every boy thinks he will represent Chiefs or Pirates one day. In fact, there was a Pirates left back from

Dobsonville. Our church was two streets away from his house and after every Soweto Derby, we’d make sure to go to his place to greet him. Apartheid was an evil system, but it forced everyone, even if you’re successful, to remain in the township. We had many successful professional footballers in our community, and it wasn’t strange ukuhlangana nabo (to meet them) for a chat and they inspired us to become professional footballers one day. Knowing that we watch these guys on television and then get to see them face-to-face was something out of this world. Now, a player signs a professional contract, and he leaves the township. Steve Lekoelea used to live a street up the road from us. This KwaMahlobo tournament on television now, it has been going on in the township for so long and has always been a great platform. Playing there was something special for everyone and the progression of football was always there. It is every child’s dream to see themselves playing in the topflight, but it was when I got to high school that I decided to focus on other things. It (professional football) was inaccessible for a lot of people because you had to be selected through trials and once you were not in that system, you stood no chance. Look, I was okay as a player and I wasn’t one of the greatest. Even the players around us were very good, but even they couldn’t go far because of poor development and lack of opportunities to progress. The system wasn’t as streamlined. Even now, it is still not where it should be.

VJ: True that.

MM: I mean, a friend of mine’s kids are playing for Ajax Amsterdam and they are treated better than most of our professional players, yet they are still U15. You can see why turning professional doesn’t go to their players’ heads because they’re used to everything.

VJ: That’s very interesting. What do you think of the overall standard of our football?

MM: It’s sad. To be honest with you, our football is in a sad state of affairs! I’m not just saying this because I love football. When you reflect on the product that’s being produced, I feel our football is stuck. I think SAFA is in trouble! My son plays football now, sometimes even for him to get SAFA accreditation takes too long. Bafana Bafana are a symptom of the fact that South African football is not performing at its best. We are one of the most professional leagues in the continent, yet our national team hasn’t qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations for some time now. Even when we qualify, we don’t really compete except for when we got to the quarterfinals through a solitary Thembinkosi Lorch goal to eliminate Egypt. The truth is, we missed an opportunity to accelerate further in 2010 when we had facilities built but we failed to fund development properly. If you look at rugby, why does a Springbok team compete all over the world and still win, even if they’re not the best? It is because the system and the pipeline are clear. As a child in primary school, you start attending rugby clinics, the schools have an organised league, SARU (South African Rugby Union) is training referees and coaches. When these kids get to high school, they are already getting selected to play for the Unions, which are strong and sign these boys at a young age. After that, they play in the Currie Cup or Craven Week and then the Springboks U16, U17 and U18 select them to play at international level. By the time they arrive in the Springbok senior team set-up, they’re ready. Now, look at our football… When last did you see our national U17 team in action? Back in the day, we had AmaGlug-Glug who were playing regularly and we could see players coming through the system to the senior team, but we don’t see that anymore. When these boys get

to the DStv Premiership, it is a completely different story because you

have teams like Chiefs, who have some of the best facilities around in their Naturena Village, competing against teams with no training facilities in the same league. The gap between teams is so massive and people don’t realise that. Cape Town City are training at Hartleyvale Stadium and they have this small changing room because the municipality isn’t assisting them. We don’t have the partnership that the EPL teams, for instance, have where the municipality leases facilities to the clubs and supports them because they understand that not only is it commercially viable for people to come and watch football games, it is also part of development and taking kids off the streets, which has a social benefit. As football is collapsing, I’m telling you now, I always tell people, you have to choose – either you build football fields or drug rehabilitation centres. That’s the choice the government has to make because we don’t have football fields. When you go to the Eastern Cape, Chippa United is playing at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, but when you look at the surrounding areas like Kwa-Nobuhle township, there are no football fields. The state of South African football can’t be judged by what we see on television. I’m glad there is this DStv Diski Challenge because it is a good thing, but we must look beyond what’s on television. Facilities must be made available, municipalities must partner with our teams so that there’s a proper working mechanism, otherwise siz oba nengxaki (we’re going to have a problem).

VJ: We already have one with so much time on the kids’ hands because of non-existent school sport in the townships. They end up doing things they shouldn’t be doing. MM: Absolutely! If you look at South African Schools Sports Association, I don’t know what’s going on. You have to compare

likes for likes. Again, I will go back to the example of rugby. They are organised all the way from school level and you can see that they play every weekend. You can watch school rugby on television before you watch the FNB Varsity Cup and you wonder why rugby is well ahead of us? Why don’t we have a school soccer tournament? Which is the top soccer school in the country? While people are struggling with that question, there are a number of school names that can be dropped on us if we asked about rugby. You know, I bumped into Thembi Kgatlana at the airport recently and it was sad to learn that until they won the recent Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, there was not much they were playing for, representing their own country. We need to remind ourselves that football can’t just be a man’s sport. I don’t even bother about Bafana Bafana but watch Banyana Banyana religiously.

VJ: What do you make of your favourite team Kaizer Chiefs’ progress so far this season?

MM: We are rebuilding and that’s the best way to answer that question. Look, a big club like Chiefs should be doing much better. COVID-19 obviously affected us and there was under-investment in buying quality players and I also think the team was suffering from a little bit of ill-discipline. Now I’m happy with the current team because coach Arthur Zwane is rebuilding the team and needs all our support. Chiefs will bounce back! We’ve got the systems in place to get us back where we belong, among the best teams in the league. We need to restore the culture that says, “We play for the jersey, not ourselves” and I think the past two seasons or so, there were players who thought they were bigger than the club. It doesn’t matter how good you are, you still play for the jersey. The All Blacks have an old saying that says, “We hand over the jersey in a better state.” When we think about players like

Doctor Khumalo, Ace Khuse and others, and their jersey numbers, they come with a lot of weight because they are no ordinary numbers. When you put that jersey on, your performance must be better than that of the previous person to use that number. No one must just wear those jerseys for the sake of it, jersey number 11 will always remain special because of

what Teenage Dladla used to do in it. The club’s legacy has to be protected at all costs and I believe the current players need to adopt the All Blacks saying.

VJ: How often do you go to the stadium to watch football?

MM: I try to go as often as I can because it does two things: it gives my son and I an opportunity to bond because I’m a father before anything else and it also inspires him to want to become better when he watches football or sport in general. The live experience is completely different to watching on television.

VJ: They say the Soweto Derby brings the whole country to a standstill and divides it into two. As a former parliamentarian, was this applicable to you guys?

MM: Certainly! Julius Malema is a staunch Pirates supporter, so you can imagine how things would be whenever the derby was approaching. We couldn’t even share a meal together because this is a big game. Even across the benches, we’d be on each other’s case about what we thought would happen. We would even make bets with General (Bantu Holomisa) and I in the Chiefs corner against Juju and other guys from Bucs. If you lost a derby, the caucus meeting was the last place you wanted to be. I hope we will pack the stadium on October 29 to return to normal after everything COVID-19 has put us through. I can see the supporters are getting back and it should be an exciting game for sure. The derby isn’t just about competing but to inspire future generations as well. If you think about the strength and weakness of international teams, if you’re watching the Spanish LaLiga, for example, if Real Madrid and Barcelona are not doing well, the league isn’t as exciting and so will the Spanish national team. Mamelodi Sundowns are strong now and produce quality players for Bafana, but you still need both Chiefs and Pirates doing well. That’s what we need so that we can make a mark on the continent. I was recently talking to coach Eric Tinkler and he was telling me how hard it is to travel in the continent and if we still have those problems, then we are not strengthening our football.

VJ: You shared a picture you took with Itumeleng Khune a few years ago and said your day was made. What was that meeting like and what were you talking about?

MM: Ha, ha, ha, Chiefs were in Cape Town and we had a chance to talk to the team. Even Siphiwe (Tshabalala), I know him very well. When coach Ernst Middendorp was coaching Chiefs, I had an opportunity to watch them train and speak to some of the players. I always tell them sport isn’t just about what happens on the field, you need to remind yourselves that my son is watching and he needs to say, “One day when I grow up, I want to be like this or that one.” That’s the inspiration I’m talking about and whenever I hang out with the players, I try to move away from football because I know how it is, having been in the public life for so long. When you lose, people want to take you apart, but when you win, you are their hero. They are young people and need to be allowed space to be human beings. I always try to inspire them to say they have a responsibility to this country and that’s what I told Khune and Shabba.

VJ: Mhlekazi, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate you taking time out to talk to us.

MM: Ndiyabulela, Mhlekaz i (Thank you, Sir). Football will give you a heart attack sometimes, but we still love it.