This month, the Premier Soccer League will be having its electoral congress to vote for new leaders and a new executive committee (exco).
Just last week, the PSL released its list of candidates that will be contesting for the eight exco positions. The list of candidates is okay. What can we say?
It does not blow my hair backwards; it’s just as dull as a Golden Arrows and Polokwane City clash in a seething, typical Limpopo heat.
What is rather alarming is that the distinguished and illustrious chairman Irvin “Iron Duke” Khoza is standing unopposed for another term, his sixth to be precise.
It is bothersome that no one from the 32 board of governors (16 Betway Premiership clubs and 16 from the Motsepe Foundation Championship) has had the guts to take over the hot seat.
Now, it is an organisation bereft of ambitious and determined individuals. For as long as the Iron Duke is still breathing, the other members will continue to hang on to the chairman’s coattails.
Make no mistake, Khoza, with his unmatched foresight and vision, turned the league into the multibillion-rand industry it is today.
Together with Kaizer Chiefs supremo Kaizer Motaung, they brought financial relief and stability as a start — before going for goal and turning SA diski into a successful enterprise.
Back in the day, professional clubs used to pay players from the boot of the club owner’s cars. Like fat cakes and cigarettes, tickets used to be sold at the gates, and starting line-up sheets were handwritten and posted on the walls in the change rooms.
One resourceful coach, whose name shall not be mentioned, would go onto the wall and check out how the opposition was laid out; he would then make a couple of changes to his team from the original list, leaving the opposition bamboozled and in a state of disarray.
Those days are now a faint memory, a mere historical reference, and part of our institutional memory.
The league is now counted among the best on the African continent and one of the best organised in the world, administratively.
The TV production of live matches is impressive, and it’s right there with the best in the business.
The fans are streaming back into stadiums with every season and the rivalry between the teams is captivating.
But the glaring lack of a succession plan, options, or depth in terms of young office bearers coming through the ranks is there for everyone to see.
It’s like a coach with enough players on the bench, but none of them steps up, let alone raises their hands, to enter the fray.
Khoza has given his life to SA football. He fought against the government in 2007 when the PSL signed a ground-breaking broadcast deal with MultiChoice, an agreement that changed the landscape of SA football and unlocked the potential that the PSL had always shown.
Motaung, too, is no longer the dashing youngling with an oily perm that set SA ablaze when he started the behemoth that is Kaizer Chiefs.
He just turned 80 and he needs to play kick-and-giggle with his grandchildren. For how long can the two gentlemen continue to go when a bunch of young bucks should have emerged by now?
It’s the same story at Safa, where no one has raised their hands or shown potential to one day take over from the Danny Jordaan.
With such a big vacuum when it comes to interested, capable individuals, Jordaan is alleged to be moving like a submarine, plotting to go for his fourth term, even though he categorically stated that the 2022-2026 term was his last in office.
Jordaan stood his ground amid scandals, court cases, police raids, damning dossiers and allegations that the association’s coffers are running empty.
He remains steadfast, robust and single-minded about another four years, which will take him to 2030 as president.
Why? Because there isn’t anyone else. The coach just has no capable players to throw in.
The politics in our football organizations…ziyathusa.