Forget money – Hendricks
Former Moroka Swallows defender Ashraf Hendricks says money should be the last thing on a person’s mind if he wants to coach at a junior level.
Hendricks runs his own club called Football Elite in Roodeport, which trains young players in the neighbourhood who can’t afford to join the other football academies.
The former Hellenic man organizes trials for his young players with PSL clubs and encourages them to secure moves overseas, because Europe has superior development facilities and programmes compared to South Africa.
“There is still a real benefit to players moving overseas. I know we have everything here but we still need to go overseas, especially for young footballers who are learning as they develop. In Europe they invest in youngsters.
“There is not much we can do with players who are already playing and have experience. We can’t teach them anything else, but we can teach the next generation of players. Right now all the money is spent on mature players who weren’t taught about the basics and we forget about young kids and the development. We want the same youngsters to be ready in a few years’ time but there is no investment towards youth, a player is only as good as what he was taught,” said Hendricks.
Hendricks started playing football professionally at the age of 15 and decided to retire at 32 because the desire was no longer there. The Football Elite boss sees earning money from playing football as a bonus and says passion should be the first reason to play football.
The Cape Town-born defender is grateful to have had teammates like Siyabonga Nomvethe and Lefa Tsutsulupa to point him in the right direction as he prepared for his retirement. Hendricks regrets not saving money and investing from the age of 16.
“When you have a family and responsibilities you say before this ends I need to do something. My biggest regret in football is not investing money when I was younger, I started late and I blame myself for that,” Hendricks explained.
“I provide transport in Joburg and Cape Town. Down in Cape Town I have taxis that operate from my area, then in Joburg we transport kids to school and our business extends to my wife running a day care centre,” said Hendricks.
Speaking on maintaining a relationship with former teammates and the shortage of opportunities for ex-footballers, Hendricks calls for the South African Football Association (Safa) to establish programmes that can educate football stars and get them ready to work in different positions within football once they are done playing.
“They need to look at some players and think what plans they have for their lives and look at how these guys can help somewhere in the game because of their qualities. Some former footballers can manage to be administrators.
“Another benefit to having former players involved in growing the sport and producing more young players is they are respected in the game and come with credibility.”