Sticky yolk running into my eyes
What a difference a week makes. Only a few days ago, I was writing an opinion piece for the Phakaaathi website, raising the real possibility of relegation for Kaizer Chiefs, so awful had their start to the season been under new head coach Gavin Hunt.
It is too easy in this business to end up with egg on your face, and here I am, sticky yolk streaming into my eyes, with Chiefs suddenly inside the top eight in the DStv Premiership. Such is the yo-yo nature of this league at times, that maybe next week, who knows, I will be able to clean the sticky mess away, and feel righteous about last week’s effort.
But it does seem like Chiefs have found a bit of a roll, after successive away wins at AmaZulu and Cape Town City.
More than anything, I have been impressed with the resolve Amakhosi have shown in those two matches – it hasn’t been pretty, more of a five year-old’s crayon scrawl than a Monet watercolour – but Chiefs have found a way to six points, which in the position they found themselves in, is really all that matters.
Samir Nurkovic’s return has clearly made a huge difference, the Serbian showing no sign of distraction from apparent interest in him from Cairo and Al-Ahly, and no sign of any after-effect of the groin surgery that kept him out of the team for so long.
Logic would dictate that Chiefs should have little problem this afternoon either, with the absolute shambles of a football team that is Tshakhuma FC. Allowing Masala Mulaudzi to buy Bidvest Wits casts more shame on the Premier Soccer League with every passing week, as story after story emerges of a club unable to even conform to surely the most basic of requirements – paying their players on time.
I thought former Wits assistant coach Paul Johnstone put it perfectly this weekend when he tweeted: “99-year legacy @BidvestWits sold down the river to this. Absolute shambles. Not to mention the loss of jobs for staff and players. Disgraceful. How @ OfficialPSL allowed this to happen is beyond me. I fear for the future of SA football.”
If one can commend the PSL for managing to keep football running in the middle of a pandemic, there are still plenty of questions about the conduct of the league that bear a quzzical glance.
Was the sale of TTM expedited, without due diligence taking place, and if so, why?
In the middle of a pandemic, not one DStv Premiership game has been called off, while matches in rugby and cricket here have been continuously postponed, and in a global context, games in the English Premier League have been called off too.
Clubs, with a couple of exceptions, have displayed a worrying lack of transparency over which of their players have tested positive.
Furthermore, the PSL continue to fail to allow media into their games, with the exception of the rights holders and one photo agency, damaging livelihoods in the process, even though gazetted goverment regulations clearly say the media are allowed in.
Is there something that is going on the league don’t want us to see?
There is a delicate balance between running a business and the health risks of a global pandemic, but more transparency from the halls of Parktown would help.