Eight-team league is nothing but a joke!
TOUCHLINE hopes some of the coaches feel the same because as things stand, this situation doesn’t benefit the development of players in this region. If we are serious about competing against the best in the world we must lay a solid foundation and this must start with our leagues from junior level to the top. It is not about finishing the league on time but all about quality.
I don’t know whose idea it was to divide Super League and Safa Sedibeng SAB League into a two-stream league. In fact, each stream consists of eight teams and this means that, at the end of the season, each team will play a total of 14 games.
TOUCHLINE would understand if this was the junior soccer league but senior players playing a total of 14 or less games throughout the season doesn’t make sense at all. Yes TOUCHLINE understands that the association wants to finish the league programme on time but this will work against those team(s) that qualify. They will play against teams that played at least 32 games compared to our home league.
This is the reason why our teams will struggle come the Safa regional play-offs, because they will be up against teams that play competitive games week-in and week-out. Some of the teams even play less than 14 games because teams don’t honour their fixtures. This will affect the development of those players in the future because they are not exposed to competitive leagues.
TOUCHLINE wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t have a team that is promoted to the ABC Motsepe League next season, based on above mentioned factors.
The other issue is that, for our teams to gain promotion to the ABC Motsepe League, they must play in the Free State stream like Manco Milano did and now the team will represent the Province in the National Play-Offs. But the question is: will they gain promotion taking into consideration what kind of teams they will be competing against?
For example, the now defunct Sasolburg Juventus FC qualified for the national play-offs for four successful years but failed to gain promotion to the National First Division. This tells you about the standard of Free State soccer.TOUCHLINE challenges the Emfuleni Local Football Association and Safa Sedibeng to look into this matter to make it a 16-league team for these boys to develop as players.
TOUCHLINE hopes some of the coaches feel the same because as things stand, this situation doesn’t benefit the development of players in this region. If we are serious about competing against the best in the world we must lay a solid foundation and this must start with our leagues from junior level to the top. It is not about finishing the league on time but all about quality.
The crisis we have with Bafana Bafana is the result of what is happening at grass-roots level.
It starts right here! Having an eight-team league is nothing but a joke to say the least.
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