Yes, when elephants fight, the grass suffers

When I switched from news journalism to sports, a friend of mine who was also a colleague at the time, Bheki Mbanjwa, advised me never to use this saying: “When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers”. He then went on to explain that it was the most overused phrase in sports journalism and had a certain level of laziness atached to it.

To this day, I have never used it. But today I am going to break Bheki’s rule, and I hope when he reads this he will understand why.

It is just that this phrase fits so perfectly in with what is currently happening in our football. The big giants are fighting. By “big giants” I mean the South African Football Association (Safa) and the Premier Soccer League (PSL).

The two have turned the beautiful game into a game of chess where they are trying to outwit one other to prove who is more intelligent or yields more power. This war started long ago and it seems there is more of a chance for the world to end, than Safa and the PSL getting along.

New battle lines were drawn on Monday this week when the PSL had a media conference where it became clear from what chairman Irvin Khoza was saying that they are ready to get the ball rolling – and I mean that literally.

Khoza said the PSL would need six weeks to wrap up the season which had to be stopped midway through, owing to the unexpected outbreak of the deadly corona virus. And, on top of that, they needed to finish the season on or before 31 August.

That meant they would have to resume playing this weekend – today in fact. There was also a “leaked” letter from the PSL to Safa stating this fact. But of course, Khoza denied the validity of the letter saying they had not set dates as that remained Safa’s decision – checkmate.

So, after Monday’s media update, it was clear that the hold-up was at Nasrec. Safa would be the ones to give the greenlight and the PSL teams would quickly converge in Gauteng at designated venues that have been declared biologically safe.

But on Tuesday, Safa threw a spanner in the works. They said they did not have a problem with games resuming but the issue was that the referees were yet to undergo testing for Covid-19 and fitness assessments. They revealed that it would take at least two weeks for the referees to be ready for action – checkmate.

After a Board of Governors meeting, the PSL said they were ready but couldn’t go on because of what Safa had said. Now there is even talk that the PSL might cancel the entire season.

This would be disastrous for so many people and could result in people losing their jobs, including us as football journalists. If the PSL cancels, clubs would not get their monthly grants and wouldn’t be able to pay salaries.

I foresee a number of owners selling their status due to the ecomomic slow-down caused by Covid-19.