Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman Dr Irvin Khoza has shared details of the early challenges faced by South African football.
The veteran football administrator explained that Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs sacrificed their financial advantages by allowing other clubs to keep gate takings and prioritising broadcasting revenue to strengthen the entire league.
Khoza also revealed the reduction from 18 to 16 teams was a necessary austerity measure, during which the two big clubs even went unpaid for two months so smaller teams could survive.
“People don’t understand the sacrifices we made. Under the old system, whenever Pirates or Chiefs travelled, the home club often made more money than we did because our supporters filled stadiums everywhere,” Khoza tells iDiski Times.
“We could easily have protected that advantage. Instead, we decided clubs should keep their own gate takings and that broadcasting – not ticket sales – should become football’s main income stream. That was a huge sacrifice. But we believed that if you’re the market leader, as we both were due to our clubs, you have a responsibility to strengthen the market.
“That’s where our philosophy came from. Compete for 90 minutes. Cooperate afterwards. Without a doubt, it was. We had to do it for austerity measures. And during that period, Pirates and Chiefs even went unpaid for two months. We said the other clubs must receive their money first because if they collapsed, the league collapsed. Those are the sacrifices people never see.”
