The PSL has announced a partnership with the Motsepe Foundation that will see the foundation take over as main sponsor of the GladAfrica Championship.
In a press briefing held in Sandton on Friday, the chairman of the PSL, Dr Irvin Khoza revealed that previous second-tier sponsor GladAfrica communicated that they would no longer be able to sponsor the league for the coming season, and with fixtures due to be released next week, an emergency call to CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe rescued the league from collapse.
"They [GladAfrica] said something very interesting to me - that because of the market conditions they are downsizing and will no longer be able to cope with the sponsorship going forward. Next week we must release the fixture, what do we say? that is why I picked up the phone [to call Patrice]," Khoza told media.
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"The reason we called you at such short notice is that he [ Khoza] called me on Thursday and said: 'I need to talk you urgently,'" Motsepe explained.
After a series of calls were made and discussions were held with other stakeholders associated with the Motsepe Foundation, the decision was made to take over the sponsorship of the second division and launch it under its new name: the Motsepe Foundation Championship.
Dr Khoza also revealed that the press conference itself had to be organised haltingly.
"I knew that Dr Motsepe would be departing on Friday night for the CAF Women's Africa Cup of Nations and we wanted to conclude and launch the Motsepe foundation Championship before his departure," the chairman said.
"As I speak to you, I was not sure what was going to happen. No one on the executive committee knew what would be announced today, and I apologise for that."
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The Motsepe Foundation also sponsors the third tier of South African football in the ABC Motsepe and recently increased the winning prize money due to struggles faced by clubs. The prize money for the winning team was juiced up from R1 million to R3 million.
"Part of what we’re doing is to increase the prize money because they’ve been getting R1-million – [the plan is] to increase that to R3-million," Motsepe said.
