The buying and selling of statuses to compete in SA’s top-flight soccer league, the PSL, is making a mockery out of our football, and it shouldn’t be allowed to continue. #SliceOfGasant columnist Gasant Abarder argues that the right to play with the elite of our country’s clubs must be earned and not bought.
It has happened before with the very same team that is now relegated from the big league. Cape Town City Football Club bought its Premier League Soccer (PSL) status from Mpumalanga Black Aces in 2015.
Ironically, after a few years of competing, Cape Town City were relegated from the PSL after this last campaign and word in soccer circles is that they are desperate for a willing seller to stay in top-flight SA football.
In the latest such move, the son of Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie paid R400-million to buy almost relegated SuperSport United’s franchise and PSL status. The Minister says he had nothing to do with the transaction. Little is known about his son and the club he has in Bloemfontein that has risen from oblivion.
Yes, there is a lot at stake. Relegation means losses in revenue, sponsors potentially withdrawing their support and jobs possibly at risk. For Cape Town, it means no metropolitan team will be playing PSL football for the 2025/26 season, and local football lovers will have to travel to Stellenbosch to watch big league football. The much-celebrated Cape Town Spurs have dropped down to effectively the third-tier league after competing for many years as its forerunner, Ajax Cape Town, in the PSL.
The relegations of the two biggest Cape Town clubs from their respective leagues are tragic for young up-and-coming players who need to look further afield for an opportunity to play in the PSL. But this is football. The ball is round, and there are 11 players allowed to play against 11 opponents at a time. And just as results cannot and should not be engineered, neither can the right to play in the country’s top league.
That right needs to be earned. It is a rite of passage. In all other countries, except South Africa, it would seem, non-division clubs dream that one day a financial backer will see potential and help fund signings and managers that could lead them to the big time. That is the romance of The Beautiful Game, and there is no shortcut to success. It takes hard work, guile and pragmatism.
Every week, hundreds of thousands of young hopefuls compete for their amateur clubs to earn promotion to the top divisions of their local football associations. Even under-10 players know that winning their league earns them promotion to the next level, until they can keep going to the top. It’s the same with rugby and cricket.
If a PSL status can thus be bought and sold, what is the message we’re sending? Some of these youth teams, through no lack of talent or will, go through a tough patch and hit a losing streak. They’ll get relegated. Imagine going back the next season to find out they’re staying in the same league because the owner bought out the rival club in the neighbouring community and their place in the division.
I was devastated when Cape Town City Football Club couldn’t win the play-offs to stay in the PSL and will now compete in the second tier if they don’t opt to buy a top-flight status. It means no regular trips to see them play in the PSL at the DHL Stadium.
But this is a reality every football fan must know when they sit in the stands each week. When they get relegated, there are tears, and some are inconsolable. I wouldn’t want it any other way, though. I want my club to come back fighting and earn its place. And I will still go to their games – win or lose – if they play in the lower division.
When Moroka Swallows – the famed Dube Birds from Soweto – sold its PSL status to Marumo Gallants, it was yet another indictment of our professional game. The Dube Birds still exist as a development club with ambitions, but it gave away a proud legacy as a club that shone light during an apartheid era that gave people perpetual darkness.
Let’s stop sullying South African football. People support a football identity, a brand and a legacy when they pull that support shirt on that stands for something and not the whims of egotistical football club owners. It’s time the professional game draws a line in the sand to stop the buying and selling of statuses to compete in the top-flight rather than earning the right to do so.
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Picture: Pixabay
