In response to Premier Soccer League boss Irvin Khoza’s touching gesture, Kaizer Motaung has opened up about some of his feelings.
In honour of his 80th birthday, Khoza presented his friend and fellow executive committee (Exco) member Motaung with R2-million during the NSL quadrennial general meeting on Wednesday at the Sandton Convention Centre.
“I would like to ask the members of the Exco to grant me permission to grant Dr Motaung R2-million to spoil himself,” Khoza said.
“Dr Kaizer Motaung has worked hard for himself. I know the pain and agony you went through to build an institution like Kaizer Chiefs and the NSL. May God bless you.”
Long and interesting journey
According to Motaung, one of the forerunners of South African football and a founding member of the NSL in 1985, Khoza’s gesture served as a reminder of their progress together.
“Yeah, indeed, it was emotional because this has been a very, very long and interesting journey,” Motaung said.
“And of course, Dr Khoza and I have been on this journey trying to manoeuvre a way forward to see how best we can improve football in this country. So, it was very emotional.”
“In fact, the music of it as well made it even worse because I just became very nostalgic about some of the things that Khoza and I went through on this journey. We’ve come a very long way.
“And when we put this league together, we had to work together as a team. And that was even before he became chairman of the Orlando Pirates at the time.”
Motaung also went into greater detail and discussed some of the difficulties they encountered, along with Khoza and some of the NSL’s original members.
We wanted to write our own history
He said: “He was with us whenever we were fighting with Sanfa [the SA National Football Association] at a time when we had to secede from Sanfa because they wanted to run both amateur football and professional football.
“So, my journey with the chairman has been very exciting and eye-opening because we went through quite a lot. It required time for us to put something together.
“But obviously we wanted to write our own history ourselves and not wait for somebody to come and write it for us.
“So, we need to continue to write our history in terms of where we come from because this has been our life through and through.”
