Buying top-flight status must be curbed

There is a time bomb that the PSL is sitting on which, if it explodes, could undo all the good work it has done over the years to build its reputation as one of the best leagues in the world.

I know some will argue with me on the PSL being one of the best but that is a debate for another day and don’t let it district us from the point I am making today.

What I am talking about here is the PSL allowing anyone who wants to own a club to buy a topflight status. This has been happening a lot in recent years.

There are far too many of those who have done nothing to grow the game but rather embarrass it by failing to pay players and staff and bringing the game into disrepute.

We all know the shambles that resulted from the sale of Bidvest Wits, a once mighty club which gave an opportunity to so many young players.

The death of Wits denied young players a chance to be at a stable club where their development was not rushed because they had all the resources to keep the development structures functioning well.

Very few clubs had the development structure that Wits had and produced such fine talent as that which was churned out at Milpark. This week alone we had two coaches come out in public about how the clubs they worked at had run out of funds and made their jobs almost impossible.

Benni McCarthy told SABC Sport how things went awry at AmaZulu when the club’s management could no longer foot the bills for some of the resources the team needed. They couldn’t even afford to pay for a training facility.

He said it was by luck that they finished second in the league in his first season there because of how bad things had become.

This clearly means the new owners might not have been ready to run the club and may have been unaware of the high costs of such a business.

While football is a business, in South Africa it is not an investment that yields much profit. In fact, our clubs should be run as foundations or trust funds because sponsors are not too keen on coming abroad except for the two big clubs – Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.

Some, like Maritzburg United, have found a way to stay afloat by selling their best players to the highest bidder at the end of every season. But this is done at the expense of the club growing.

Brandon Truter alleged that Swallows had tried to force him to resign using under-handed tactics like sending supporters to threaten him and his family. He says he is yet to get his settlement fee after he was dismissed.

These things are not good for the game and they will derail us.

We are already 10 years behind other big leagues but with more clubs being owned by people who can’t afford to run them, it is taking us back even further.