NFD a league without PSL support
When the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and Motsepe Foundation rolled out the red carpet to launch the latter’s sponsorship of the neglected National First Division (NFD), it was hoped this would be among the game-changers SA football desperately needs.
Yet this week, in the run-up to Friday’s kick-off of the new Motsepe Foundation Championship (MFC), it was revealed by NFD club bosses that they had not heard from the PSL whether prize money or their grants would increase. Not a memo, not a whisper, not even a little birdie tweeting into anyone’s ear, let alone a board of governors’ meeting to keep the 32 DStv Premiership and MFC clubs updated on developments. No one even knew what the trophy would look like.
This is problematic on so many levels that the columnist thought he’d number them, like buttons in the lift of a decrepit Hillbrow block of flats that desperately needs renovation.
First floor. If first-division clubs still do not know, two months after Patrice Motsepe and Irvin Khoza announced the NFD sponsorship at Johannesburg’s Sandton Convention Centre on July 1, how much their grants will be, how do they budget for the 2022-23 season?
Second floor. Like this block of flats we’re in, the NFD has needed repair for years, decades even. The R500,000 grant clubs have received since 2016 doesn’t touch sides on travel costs, wage bills and other expenses. And for clubs to find sponsors has been made more difficult because the PSL, despite its cosy relationship with SuperSport, has not managed to secure the televising of NFD matches. And for the MFC, indications in this respect are unclear.
Third floor. The high costs to owners mean NFD clubs cannot sustain themselves, so teams are constantly being sold, even more than in the premiership. The foundation and feeder to the top-flight is, therefore, unstable. The previous sponsorship from GladAfrica was poor. The grant did not increase and prize money — Richards Bay FC received R3m for winning last season — was underwhelming.
The grant is more important than the prize money. It was hoped the Motsepe Foundation sponsorship would be the game-changer that might make the NFD a league in which clubs can exist without having to put all their eggs in the promotion basket and, when they fail, sell or give in to relegation, as even Jomo Cosmos have.
Fourth floor. The lack of communication with the clubs and uncertainty about the grant and prize money must be embarrassing for the sponsors. And not just because the PSL has handled it poorly. One would assume with such a highprofile deal the sponsors would have taken an interest in settling the prize money and grants issue with the PSL long before the season kicked off, or at least ensure the PSL did. Or did they, and the PSL simply hasn’t informed the clubs? Either way, it’s not a great start for the MFC.
It’s disappointingly slack of the PSL, an organisation that claims to have moved ahead professionally. It indicates the NFD is still seen, shortsightedly, as a burden, not a potential producer of talent if it was run the way it should be.
Fifth floor. The button’s broken, so here there are just questions. Does the Motsepe Foundation sponsorship mean there will be more money for clubs? Is this something that’s still being settled?
Is it something that’s settled, but the PSL has been slack in letting teams know? Friday’s MFC kickoff was televised — does that mean this is a permanent arrangement? Why the breakdown in communication with the clubs? Here ends the tour of a broken building. Let’s hope its new landlords realise the need for repairs or their influence won’t be worth much more to the suffering tenants than a change of name above the front door.