Just when I thought Caf president Patrice Motsepe couldn’t flex any harder than he did in Potchefstroom, he surprised me at the ABC Motsepe League national playoffs.
The man announced that he was going to increase the overall money pot of the ABC national playoffs from R1m to R3m from next season.
We didn’t even get a chance to finish our “Welcome to the NFD” articles for the latest national ABC winners, MM Platinum, the Caf Supremo told us to change the name of the whole second-tier league.
So here’s how we’re gonna do this.
The ABC Motsepe League champions, MM Platinum have been promoted to the Motsepe Foundation Championship and they might face the Motsepe owned Mamelodi Sundowns in the national cup!
The announcement was a beautiful exchange with both Mr Motsepe and Bra Irvin Khoza acknowledging and appreciating each other.
For the first time in a very long time, Bra Ike went into detail about sponsorship money pertaining to the NFD.
The NFD doesn’t usually get this kind of public attention from Bra Ike. Bra Ike doesn’t even have to try to deny it, the NFD is a problem.
He admitted that he reached out to Mr Motsepe’s foundation “for support was accepted and activated at such short notice”.
Really awesome that the Motsepe Foundation was able to come through at the clutch in such a big way. But why did it have to get to that?
Everyone knew the GladAfrica partnership was up for renewal and it wasn’t being renewed and it was left that way until the actual contract expiry date was close to the end.
It’s hard to believe they had shopped the league to anybody else besides GladAfrica hoping they’d renew.
There was nobody else interested? Why are they saying they’re not interested? What will be done to improve the league and make it attractive to sponsors in the future?
I have so many questions? There’s a sponsor now secured for the next five years. So the league will run smoothly and clubs will get their grants.
The PSL Chairman was mentioning R200m and R400m a year running costs for the second tier, and the new sponsors will cover much of that bill
Are there plans to finally add a knockout cup for the division? And what about those damn playoffs man?
Maybe there will be a Motsepe Cup between the ABC Motsepe and Motsepe NFD, it would makes sense and would still be independent of the favoured big brother Premiership.
Maybe finally we can have a real platform for the national set-up to catch top U20s and Cosafa Cup talent. It would also be an ideal integrating point for the players as they all bid for spots in those selections.
It can’t be business as usual. There are more announcements about the deal that are surely going to be made as it develops.
We mustn’t forget this agreement was made quick and fast, so some of the questions we all have will be answered I’m pretty sure.
One thing is for sure right now. We don’t have to worry about money for now. Patrice got us!