A tale of suspension: The scandal of South Africa's National First Division which leaves Jomo Sono sidelined

Super Sono: will we ever see this again?

THERE is a scandal lurking beneath the surface of South Africa football which needs to be urgently addressed. It has nothing to do with Bobby Motaung’s dealings in Mbombela or the way Orlando Pirates go for the ball.

This is a far more pressing problem involving a missing teenager: What exactly has happened to the 16-year-old National First Division?

Last week, as the Premier Soccer League celebrated the return of ABSA, introduced the Q innovation and offered journalists R500,000 to predict results, we were told the NFD was “suspended until further notice”.

That’s like the Championship in England being called off a week after it was due to start… an unthinkable act of footballing foolishness.

Acting PSL CEO Cambridge Mokanyane, a controversial caretaker following the shock departure of Stanley Matthews at the end of last season, says we must now wait for a Special General Meeting “towards the end of August 2012” that will decide on the future of the NFD.

But exactly why Mokanyane was involved is hard to fathom, given that the members agreed just a week earlier that the NFD should be a stand-alone league in an effort to make it more viable as an attractive brand.

What we do know is this: relegated Premier League sides Jomo Cosmos and Santos, along with failed play-off contenders Thanda Royal Zulu, are now operating in a vacuum. They have resumed pre-season training and are paying large squads of professional players – but they have no fixture list and no prospect of a game – or promotion - in sight.

Jomo Sono, the larger-than-life proprietor of relegated PSL club Cosmos, insists: “I know both leagues because we have played in both of them for quite some time. It’s high time the NFD realised its potential in terms of competing for support and raising the level of competition on the field."

While the new-fangled PSL offers R1.5m to the quarterly winners of their top tier, the NFD remains dramatically sponsor-free and racked by legal action brought over the presence of various unregistered players last season.

Blackburn Rovers had a drawn out issue and just last week it was announced that Carara Kicks have been relegated from the league which South African football relies upon to feed clubs in to the Premier.

Though there is no date set for the “special meeting”,  the PSL – sponsors of the NFD when Mvelaphanda pulled out in 2007 - insist they will "deliberate and expand on the NFD matter" but nobody is willing to talk and the First division teams have NOT YET been give their R250 000 monthly grant (the Premier clubs receive R1m) though the PSL's head of communications Connie Motshumi insists thi will happen soon.

When the NFD split from the PSL, Jabu Khumalo, boss of long-running NFD side African Warriors, said: "We are confident that the stand-alone National First Division will grow as a big sporting brand in South Africa and on the continent.

"We have many companies that we intend approaching to sponsor us, including television companies to broadcast our matches."

But Khumalo insists the word “split” is too strong. He said: “It’s too strong to say split. It doesn’t perfectly describe what this is all about.

“There is the main body which runs both the PSL and the NFD, the NSL. Should this go ahead it will remain like that only that the NFD will not fall under the PSL as it has  in the past but will be a standalone league.

“We will then start mobilising sponsors and re-brand the league to make it more attractive to not only future funders but fans too.

“This will have a positive impact on South African football in the long run. We will continue to be a development league for the PSL but now we will  be giving them stronger teams and stronger players who can compete, raising the bar.”

Khumalo says: “The problem is that we have been overshadowed by the PSL for far too long and initially it will be hard but we can make it work.”

And we can only hope he’s right. A Premier League without a feeder system and, possibly, without promotion and relegation, is unthinkable.

This article appeared in www.thenewage.co.za today... if you have any information of the impact of the NFD suspension, please email me on www.nealcollins.hotmail.com.

Less than 24 hours before the big PSL kick-off: Irvin Khoza brings us the Q innovation

The supreme leader: PSL and Pirates boss Irvin Khoza

This is the full text of Irvin Khoza’s amazing PSL press conference yesterday. With his own Orlando Pirates kicking-off the new season against Golden Arrows at 8pm tonight, the Iron Duke appeared completely unruffled by the last-minute nature of his announcement.

I guess when you run both the South African Professional Soccer League AND the double-treble winning club that has dominated that League for the last two years, you can do what you like.

In what he calls “the Q innovation” Khoza announced that there would be R1.5m cash prizes awarded to the teams that finish top of the PSL at the end of each quarter, with the eventual title winners earning R10m. I think what Khoza is saying is that there will be four mini-leagues (Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4) all added up to a final table.

I don’t think I have ever seen the regulations of a league championship announced on the same day that the competition kicks off, not even at amateur level – but that’s not to say it’s not an interesting innovation.
My beef is with the non-sponsorship of the NFD and the offering of huge sums to journalists for correctly predicting results. That can't be right. Without any further ado, here is the FULL text of PSL chairman Khoza’s announcement this morning from the PSL official website. I'm off to dry the washing.

I have said time and time again that you cannot dry today’s washing with yesterday’s sun.

What was good enough yesterday might not be enough tomorrow. Knowing the real reasons why you are successful helps you hone in on what works and discard what doesn’t.

Sometimes it is not what you are doing but how you are doing it. Ours has become a world of instant gratification where ‘now’ is the only time. In case you are wondering where I am headed with all these philosophical annotations, here is where?

I have called you here ladies and gentlemen of the media to announce an innovation to the ABSA Premiership. It is an innovation borne out a careful sustained examination of the PSL against a backdrop contained in the annotations I made earlier.

There is no doubt that the ABSA Premiership has become a competitive league that is guaranteed to go to a photo finish season after season. In fact in the last five years the ABSA Premiership was decided in the final matches played simultaneously under circumstances where duplicate trophies and helicopters were held on ‘stand by’.

There is heightened excitement and conversation from the last eight fixtures of the league. This conversation transcends club support. It is about the permutations and probabilities.

It is about performance of teams against their rivals where factors such as venue, time of day even day of the week seem to have a bearing. It is about factors as rational as for example rival teams fighting for title contention versus a place in the top eight or avoiding relegation, to factors as irrational as teams and venues dubbed ‘hoo-doo’ teams and venues against certain teams.

The PSL Executive has therefore decided to add an innovation to the ABSA Premiership that will create and sustain the excitement and conversation experienced in the final eight fixtures of the premiership, to last for all of each team’s thirty fixtures of the season.

To achieve this, the ABSA Premiership League will from this season, from today, be divided into Four Quarters, Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. Q1 will have eight fixtures; Q2 seven; Q3 eight and Q4 seven. This means after every team has played eight games Q1 is over and Q2 starts with the re-set.

Similarly after every team has played an additional seven games Q2 will be complete and Q3 will commence with the re-set. So will Q4 commence after every team has played eight games in Q3 and the re-set.

This innovation is called the Q-innovation.

There will be a prize of R1.5 million for the teams that finish the different quarters at the top. This is over and above the R10 million prize for the overall ABSA Premiership League winner.

The prize money for the winner of the ABSA Premiership and the four Quarters is R16 million.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the greatest benefit from this innovation is how it makes every game count - every single one of the 240 ABSA Premiership games. It migrates the conversation from ‘just my club’s games’ to ‘every game played’.

Scenarios like, “How is the club that is an equal contender for the top spot against us is going to fare against the team we just drew against today or yesterday”, creates an across the board interest in all the games of the league in real time. It is like watching games on a split screen, all with a bearing on each other.

I am describing this conversation in singular and not plural although there are millions of supporters and fans conversing. I deliberately did not call it conversations because although millions are conversing, they are conversing about different aspects of the same topic. It is this convergence in conversation that this innovation seeks to consolidate.

This conversation happens in your different media platforms. The millions of supporters and fans consume their soccer through your reports and broadcasts. It is through your observations, words and images that the excitement and conversation are fuelled. Your words and images – written, heard and seen.

It is for this reason that we decided to not limit the excitement and competition to the teams alone. The PSL Executive has therefore decided to challenge you ladies and gentlemen of the media to make predictions based on your experience and thorough knowledge of the teams, game and conditions. You are after all doing this week in and week out.

The difference is that you will be submitting your predictions to the Auditors – Delloite.

The forms will be sent to every journalist on our Green 4 CRM system that is used, amongst other things, to send you invitations and media releases. This is to ensure that no journalist covering the ABSA Premiership is excluded.

The forms will require you to provide, amongst other things, your id numbers for verification purposes. It is important that you provide the information requested in the form.

As experts and celebrities in this space, your predictions will make for interesting reading. Especially since you are expected to get it all right given you only have to predict win, lose or draw – and not the scores.

With it being the nature of the beast, it expected that you will advance creative and compelling reasons for your predictions, especially the ones that miss the mark.

At the end Q1 the names of the winners, those that correctly predicted the team and points of the team that will win Q1, will be put into a draw. The winner will win R500 000 in the three categories of print, radio and television.

Your will be required to enter your predictions for the first four fixtures win, lose or draw. At the end of each team’s fourth fixture you will be requested to enter your prediction for Q1 winning team and points it will win by.

These will be kept by Delloite until the end of Q1 when the draw will be made. If not one entry predicts the correct team and points, the entries correctly identifying the team will be put into a draw from which the winner will be drawn.

The prize for the winner will in this case be R250 000 for each category – print, radio and television.

Entries for this weekend fixture, which is game one for every team this season, will close at 19h00 this evening.

Entries for all subsequent fixtures will be due one hour before kick-off of first game in that fixture block.

For example the deadline for the game 2 fixture will be 18h30 on Tuesday, 21 August 2012 for all the game 2 fixtures taking place on Wednesday 21 August and Thursday 22 August. Entries should be emailed to this email address: Qinnovation@psl.co.za.

The PSL has extensively consulted and enquired if this competition involving journalists that cover its space raises any ethical issues.

We are satisfied that just like journalism awards recognise and reward journalist without compromising the integrity of the profession, this competition does not compromise the ethics and integrity of the journalist covering the ABSA Premiership.

This inclusive competition will instead enhance the job already performed by the journalist in this space without any negative influence. You ladies and gentlemen are already making these predictions. All that is added is that you will be doing the prediction with a possibility of recognition and reward for you or charity.

I am mentioning charity as the PSL Executive has provided for journalists who are precluded from winning prize money by their employers or for any other reason can nominate a charity of their choice to be a recipient beneficiary of their prize.