The burning issue of when exactly the long-serving Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman, Irvin Khoza, will call it quits from the position he has held with an iron fist for the past 26 years has once again come to the fore.
The succession debate, talked about in hushed tones in some quarters over the past decade or so, elicits strong emotions with the Iron Duke, simply because he believes he has invested his and his family’s lives and legacy in the PSL.
But this week Khoza himself raised the knotty question at the launch of the new PSL competition, the Carling Knockout Cup, due to replace the defunct Telkom Knockout next season.
The ageing and frail looking Khoza, he is 74, has undoubtedly run his race with Kaizer Chiefs chairman Kaizer Motaung by his side.
Could it be the reality has finally dawned on him that the PSL needs new blood?
Khoza was forthright, he did not mince words when spelling out the calibre of a person he wants taking over and running with his legacy when he decides to call it a day – maybe in 2024, when his current term ends.
Before the PSL was established in 1996, the precursor semi-professional league in the country was known as the National Soccer League (NSL), established in 1985 after the acrimonious and bruising split from the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL).
As the country’s professional football wing, Khoza’s PSL was founded on the constitution of the mother body of pro soccer, the NSL, and was led as a break-away body by NPSL defectors, with the late teacher Leepile Tauyane from Alexandra as chairman, and Durban businessman Roger Sishi as his deputy chair.
It is not an understatement to say Khoza views the PSL as his baby, and to a certain extent his fiefdom,simply because it was with the blessing of the NSL founders Taunyane and Sishi that the PSL came to be a fully professional football body 26 years ago, with the Iron Duke as its first and still serving chairman.
The moniker “PSL chairman” has become synonymous with Khoza and perhaps that is the very reason he believes it is his birth right to dictate the future of the football organisation when he decides to finally relinquish the throne.
Many of Khoza’s critics among his fellow PSL club bosses have been harshly silenced over the years after having the audacity to come out publicly declaring their readiness to oppose him come election time.
Ask TS Galaxy chairman Tim Sukazi why he did not carry out his ambition tochallenge Khoza in 2020.
Instead, Khoza ran the race alone, unopposed as has been the case over the past two-and- a-half decades.
Outlining the traits he wants from his successor, Khoza declared the newcomer must have worked at amateur and grassroots level with local football associations as he did in Alexandra township.
His successor must also be conversant with how the league is run and understand its challenges going forward.
The next man in line must have a deep understanding of the ins and outs of football commercialisation, what the sponsors require, including how to bring major stakeholders, the clubs and football fans into the product that is the PSL.
Could it be that Khoza has already identified the heir to his throne?
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