Mutichoice Diski Challenge kicks off on 5 September

NATIONAL – MultiChoice together with the Premier Soccer League today announced season two of the MultiChoice Diski Challenge, which will kick off with a festival weekend at the Makhulong Stadium in Tembisa, Gauteng on Saturday, 5 September 2015.

The MultiChoice Diski Challenge (MDC) is MultiChoice’s flagship corporate responsibility programme which consists of three core elements:
1. A 16-team football development league competition in partnership with the Premier Soccer League (PSL) which will fast track the development of young players into the first teams of the PSL league
2. Life skills and leadership development of the young football players
3. An internship programme of 43 aspiring broadcasting professionals gaining practical experience in various areas of broadcasting with SuperSport.

The MultiChoice Diski Challenge

The MultiChoice Diski Challenge consists of 16 teams, split into two groups of eight teams each, which are representative of the general PSL.

The two groups play each other in an eight team competition that comprises of group stages, quarter finals, semi-finals and finals. The rules and regulations of this league are determined by the PSL.

The programme will kick off on the weekend of 13 September 2014 and wrap up by March 2015. A total of 66 matches will be played.

The winning team will receive:

–    The MultiChoice Diski Challenge trophy (rotating)
–    Gold medals
–    A trip to Holland for a 4-day training camp at the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB). They will also play friendly games against Bundesliga opponents and Germany.

The first and second runners up will receive Bronze and Silver medals respectively.

Football player development

The league will provide a platform for young players to showcase their talent and fast track their transition into professional football. The programme will also focus on football player development through player tracking, profiling and media training.

Players will have an opportunity to interact with football legends and receive life and leadership skills training during the course of the programme. Two life skills workshops will be conducted for all the participating players across all 16 teams at the festival weekends.

The first workshop will be conducted in KZN following festival weekend 1 with 8 teams and the second will be held similarly following festival weekend 2 in Cape Town with the remaining 8 teams.

MultiChoice will offer each team an opportunity to nominate three players to attend 7-day leadership development programme to build their leadership capacity at the end of the competition in March 2015.

MultiChoice will offer up to 30 players who have an interest in broadcast careers an opportunity to attend a one week career conference at the MultiChoice campus in Randburg. The conference will offer the players in-depth exposure to career paths in the broadcast environment and will include panel discussions with our executives, engineers, producers and technicians.

Multichoice Diski Challenge

Sports production internships The MultiChoice Diski Challenge gives upcoming production interns the chance to gain practical experience on and off the field in producing live MultiChoice Diski Challenge matches
for SuperSport. These young producers will also receive mentoring and coaching from experienced producers, engineers and other broadcasting professionals.

43 production interns, 17 of whom are female will form part of the production teams that consist of production assistants, assistant producers, directors, EVS operators, graphics, camera operators etc.

An 11 episode magazine show on the competition will also be produced by the interns. The show will be broadcast on SuperSport to showcase all the behind the scenes activities of the competition as well as profile players, coaches and other role-players.

SuperSport will be responsible for all the content production including the recruitment, management and training of production interns for the production of the live content and magazine show.

MultiChoice will also offer five fully paid academic scholarships to qualifying players and interns as a further means to professional development and advancement.

Broadcasting the MultiChoice Diski Challenge SuperSport will be the primary carrier of the games on the DStv platform – with live matches broadcast primarily on SuperSport Select (DStv channel 210) and SuperSport 4 HD (DStv
channel 204), depending on channel scheduling.

MultiChoice will also give community TV channels on its DStv platform the opportunity to broadcast the televised games from the MultiChoice Diski Challenge live, thereby increasing the exposure of the young players and allowing their communities to follow their journeys and experience their triumphs. Community TV channels will have the option to cover the games that will not be broadcast by SuperSport.

See Fixtures