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A vicious circle – that’s our football

A vicious circle – that’s our football

Posted: 2010-02-25 10:53

As the ball spins around so too does the vicious circle we find ourselves in.

Most PSL players rise to fame too quickly, which almost always ends in a slippery fall off the pedestal and back to reality.

Reason is fans are starving for genuine stars and the whole industry is to blame in some way for feeding this appetite.

Before Mzansi has celebrated a rising star, another one falls by the way side as quickly as Josep Ngake used to get to the byline.

That the supremely talented Andile Jali is standing out as a leader at the mighty Orlando Pirates aged 19, is a scary thought.

OJ Mabizela showed that same promise once at Bucs and his life story is chilling lesson.

And this swings back to clubs and fans and club owners not giving older players enough credit for their value at a club.

It’s one of the reasons young players like Jali don’t have enough role models around them these days.

How do we protect a Jali when the PSL is desperate for classy entertainers, as fans crave real quality and when our national team – on the brink of hosting the World Cup – don’t have a defensive midfielder who can pass consistently straight?

It’s a tough question to answer.

Something in us is crying out to promote, celebrate and lavish bright young players with everything we’ve got. Right?

But there is little consistency to actually celebrate.

Last season we saw Teko Modise score freely from midfield, this season he’s netted zilch for his club. Richard Henyekane notched 19 last time round, this season just over a handful. And the list goes on …

In 2009/10 Free State Stars’ goalkeeper, Kennedy Mweene, has scored more than Teko … it’s time to worry!

There’s Stanton Lewis’ return from Ajax Amsterdam where he was unsuccessful. This difficult path home required the swallowing of pride, some gritty determination to prove critics wrong, and a good dose of reality and hard graft.

But, sadly, he hasn’t kicked a ball since returning.

Proof reading our latest magazine interview with Lebo Mokoena raised some alarm bells. Not only because he made very interesting comments about what he went through as a youth product of Orlando Pirates.

But more because since making his pro debut in 2003, he has only started 69 official matches That’s an average of 9.8 starts per season over seven years for a player with so much talent.

To put that into perspective. Tsepo Masilela started 39 matches in just one season in Israel.

These days, with the World Cup the big focus, sponsors are more aggressive than a pit-bull on steroids.

But with the focus mainly on players from the Soweto giants, it limits their options to just a few.

My challenge to sponsors has always been to consider investing in long-term projects such as development and not only on the player of the day.

What are we doing as a country, a football industry to protect players? It’s education that is key to all of this and this has to start at youth level within the club structures.

It’s encouraging to see some clubs teaching youngsters how to deal with income, media, fame and staying focused on their short careers. But we need more to follow this example.

Remember there is a hungry lion out there to feed that it has a very fussy appetite – it’s Chiefs or Pirates and there’s room for very little else.

Can this be changed? Probably not quickly. But if we don’t all play our part we’ll stay trapped in a vicious circle where the ball just keeps rolling around.

What would your solution be and how would you help spread the interest across all PSL teams, protect young players and improve player’s consistency?

Let me know.
neil.greig@touchline.co.za
on twitter - NeilGreigSoccer

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Kwest: 2010-02-25 11:37

Kick off should sholder the blame as well. This is how Kick Off works; A Sifiso Villa signs for Chiefs, he plays two good games, he gets a front cover spot, he is being interviewed by Kick Off every 3 days.... and so forth. Once the wheels fall off, Kick Off write all these bad stories about the player, killing off the player period!

So the solution is simple, STOP GLORIFYING PLAYERS ONLY AFTER 3 GAMES!!!

Kick Off and other soccer publications have killed our promising players.

Fafalaza: 2010-02-25 11:56

Eish! I can instantly come up with three suggestions: restrict number of foreigners, reserve league for bench-warmers and a professionally-run U-19 league. But all these have been suiggested before and fallen on deaf ears!
How about insisting that the PSL insist on the following:
1. Clubs have compulsory development academies with measurable outcomes.
2. Clubs forced to account how much they invest in marketing.
3. A monitoring mechanism that tracks the progress of players promoted from the academies mentioned in 1 above: no of appearances, subs,etc.
4. Rewards for best perfomers, benchmarking based on best practices and differential allocation of funds according to need.
5. Stricter measurers w.r.t. coaching qualifications esp in development but not excluding professional sides' first team benches!

Risingstarsfc: 2010-02-25 13:31

We don't have strikers only midfielders.

elwin ashley: 2010-02-25 20:01

All of us are to blame, the media, the fans, SAFA, the clubs, the coaches and the players. I have no idea why we think PSL players are stars, especially chiefs, pirates and sundowns players. Here is a fact, leading clubs around the world have very sophisticated scouting networks the world over. If there is genuine star out there they will find him. I do not see or hear of scouts competing over SA players. The blind are leadind the blind here (read development coaches). We speak of a football identity crises. There is no crisis but rather denial. The three cornerstones of south african football are the former NPSL(Blacks only), NFL(Whites only) and FPL(Coloureds and Indians only) leagues. Bringing these different footballing styles together like in 1996 is the way forward. Style over substance is what is killing our football. Style only accomodates a certain style based on a coaches' philosophy which makes it very exclusive. The result is that good players who do not fit the style are excluded. Ever since we stopped playing a 3 - 5 - 2 system our ranking has dropped. This is the only system that is inclusive and accomodates these three cornerstones of our SA football.