What the Siya crew has been told…
Limpopo Sports School of Excellence Football Academy is crying foul at the alleged non-payment of training and development compensation for 21-year-old rising star, Cassius Mailula.
According to those connected to the Polokwane-based academy, there has allegedly been no payment received from Mamelodi Sundowns for the two years that the player spent with them before he moved to Chloorkop for further development.
“It’s a tough situation we find ourselves in because as people on the ground, we expect some form of payment from big clubs when these boys make it to the professional ranks and sign contracts,” said an academy insider.
“There is a lot of money that is spent on these boys when developing them, from getting them from nowhere to taking care of them on expenses such as transportation, food and so on. You would expect that a big club wouldn’t have a problem with paying a mere R100 000, at least, to the academy for each year that a boy spent with them, but it’s a struggle,” the source added.
When the Siya crew started the investigation, a second source revealed that attempts had been made to communicate with Sundowns about the matter, but to no avail. That has since changed, though at the time the source said that they had no feedback.
“Cassius is not the first player from the academy to be identified by Sundowns. Keletso Makgalwa went the same route, while another one is Thendo Mukumela, who is now with AmaZulu FC. We didn’t get anything even for those two players,” said the source.
“We have tried to deal with Sundowns on the matter through the channels that were made available to us, but to no avail. Yogesh (Singh, Sundowns general manager) is the person we have been dealing with. Whenever we wanted to approach Patrice Motsepe directly when he was still the president, we would be advised otherwise and told of how big and influential he is in football and that we should avoid doing that.
“It’s a good thing that Walter Steenbok is now with SAFA (as a technical director), and we are hoping that he can help. We will approach him to provide clarity on how this development compensation works, for just in case we are misinformed. He knows all about scouting and therefore he should have an interest in helping in this,” the source went on.
However, indications are that an open line of communication between the academy and Sundowns has now opened.
Soccer Laduma reached out to Sundowns for right of reply last week and while the club did not respond, the academy has indicated that the club has since made contact and is willing to assess the training and development compensation.
And with the matter ongoing, the Siya crew spoke to a source who is close to both the South African Football Association (SAFA) and the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and privy to the dealings around training and development compensation.
“In South Africa, things fall off the rails when it comes to training and development compensation because the South African rules that deal with this are so incredibly incoherent. More often than not, if you can make any sense of them at all, they’re used as a reason for clubs not to pay training and development compensation.
“Nobody knows how much it is for paying training and development compensation. It’s not in the SAFA rules. If you ask SAFA, they will tell you that they think it’s R50 000 and if you ask the PSL, they will tell you that they think it’s R2 000. What you fundamentally have is the difference of opinion because there is no clear guideline in terms of the SAFA regulations as to what the actual compensation is and that causes significant challenges for amateur football clubs in claiming training and development compensation,” he said.
“More often than not, PSL clubs would say to amateur clubs it’s either they are not entitled to anything at all because the SAFA rules are not applicable or that the amount is not specified and therefore, they are obliged to pay them R2 000 and not R50 000. Where the R50 000 comes from, that’s the amount that PSL clubs pay each other for training and developmental compensation.
“So, if a player is developed from a Kaizer Chiefs academy but signs his first professional contract at Sundowns or any other PSL club, then they will pay each other R50 000 per season,” the source added.
“They say those rules are not applicable to amateur clubs because amateur clubs are not part of the PSL. So now, what you have is a situation where amateur football clubs will go to SAFA, but as of February 2022, SAFA has refused to hear any training and developmental compensation cases where clubs are claiming because they say they acknowledge that the rules don’t make sense and they acknowledge that they need to change them,” concluded the source.