The Premier Soccer League’s (PSL) decision to block Mamelodi Sundowns’ participation in the African Football League AFL appears set to develop into a Mexican standoff between three of South African football’s administrative heavyweights, insiders believe.
The PSL’s board of governors (BoG) voted in an urgent meeting on Thursday not to adjust the domestic calendar to allow Sundowns to compete in the hugely lucrative AFL from October 20 to November 11.
This has produced another mini-crisis in South African football to be untangled by, even if they did some of the tangling, the country’s three most important administrators — PSL chair Irvin Khoza, Confederation of African Football (Caf) president Patrice Motsepe and Safa president Danny Jordaan.
Khoza is also chair of Sundowns’ Big Three rivals, Orlando Pirates. Motsepe is owner of Sundowns but has relinquished his presidency while serving his Caf term, with son Tlhopie Motsepe installed as the hands-on chair who runs the Brazilians in his father’s absence.
Speculation, and one Safa official feels it is a possibility, might be that the impasse, with undertones of this country's soccer politics and rivalries between its power brokers, could threaten the Motsepe Foundation’s sponsorship of the PSL’s second tier National First Division (NFD). The NFD became the Motsepe Foundation Championship (MFC) when the foundation stepped in when the PSL was in desperate need of a sponsor post-Covid-19 in July 2022.
TimesLIVE Premium spoke to figures in Caf, Safa and the Motsepe Foundation, who all did not want to be named, for background to this story.
The official from the Motsepe Foundation felt Motsepe would not direct his foundation’s sponsorship to attain favouritism in decision making. They said Motsepe makes sponsorships with the aim of strengthening the South African football environment his club competes in and in the interests of the country’s soccer. Motsepe also sponsors Safa’s third-tier, amateur ABC Motsepe League.
The official said Motsepe takes the handing of the administration of Sundowns to son Tlhopie seriously, and while the club remains “his baby”, he views the separation as important.
In the same way, they said, the PSL’s ruling to not make space on its calendar for Downs to compete in the AFL reinforces the separation between the Caf president and domestic administration in his home country, dispelling the notion there is favouritism from Motsepe for South Africa.
However, the Safa official, from correspondence between the association and Motsepe, felt the shot across the bows by the PSL of another of Motsepe’s babies, the AFL, had rankled the Caf president.
The Safa official said the PSL’s BoG — consisting of the 32 DStv Premiership and MFC clubs — might have had 31 votes to back the decision, but the process was being driven by Sundowns’ Big Three rivals, Kaizer Chiefs and Pirates. The PSL BoG has long been reported on, as per some club officials’ testimony, as a rubber-stamping body subject to the whims of Khoza.
Chiefs and Pirates are apparently unhappy the planned 24-team tournament, which they were mooted as partaking in, was replaced by this year’s eight-team pilot event that excluded them. Indications from Chiefs and Pirates to Safa have been they are concerned, given Sundowns share all their prize money with their players, that it could become even more difficult for the two Soweto giants to compete in the transfer market with the Brazilians.
A Caf official felt such concerns were shortsighted. They said the tournament’s expansion to 24 teams is scheduled to happen next year, and this has been communicated to federations, leagues and clubs.
It’s disappointing to see South African internal politics spilling onto the international stage.
— African football official
The PSL’s decision has caused embarrassment for Motsepe. The AFL will be one of the major aspects of his legacy as Caf president. Backed by Saudi money — reportedly as part of their interest in influencing the substantial African vote for a future World Cup bid — and backed by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, the “super league” concept tournament will turn Caf from a pauper of continental confederations into a wealthy player. Motsepe hoped South Africa’s most successful club continentally, Sundowns, would fly the country’s flag in the inaugural tournament.
One African football official TimesLIVE Premium spoke to decried situation as “embarrassing”. “It’s disappointing to see South African internal politics spilling onto the international stage,” they said.
However, Caf are also apparently not blameless on the issue. Federations on the continent are apparently unhappy the contract for playing a major role running the AFL has been given to an agency in Italy, and Caf refers queries from member associations to that company.
Caf, a source said, is looking to Safa as the mother body to pull rank and try to reinstall Sundowns, hence an 11.33pm media statement put out by the association on Saturday night supporting “the significant contributions of the AFL to African club and national team football”. However, the PSL and Safa's relationship is notoriously poor and the supposedly subservient professional wing has been reluctant to bend to the will of Safa on numerous occasions.
What negotiations involving Caf, Safa and the PSL might follow to try to convince the league to reverse its decision remains unclear.
However, the wisdom of allowing the inaugural AFL to take place without a South African representative must surely be highly questionable.
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