Mashaba and the Ke Yona Team will always be credited for unearthing Bafana Bafana star Aubrey Modiba as well as a few other players.
Last week Nedbank decided to withdraw their sponsorship of the initiative, leaving many aspiring footballers disappointed.
"Eish you know when such news reaches you sometimes, they leave you stunned, asking yourself what's really happening now," Mashaba tells snl24.com/kickoff.
"Some of the things are supposed to be left as they are. If you look at the programme of Team Ke Yona, it had a huge interest from the young players you know.
"I was not involved in the last one but up to now I'm still getting calls, 'When are we starting with this Team Ke Yona?' I wouldn't say to them this thing is closed because it's demoralising to the spirit of the players. They must get it from somewhere.
"You know as coaches who are dealing with these youngsters, negativity is not good towards them. You've got to have a special way of informing them. Even on my side I'm sitting, I'm looking at a few positives who came out of this.
"I mean let's start off with the Modiba thing. People must understand, we wouldn't have produced ten Modibas at a go. That would have been impossible.
"It's happening in our clubs locally. They've got academies but if you look at their senior teams, none of the players that are playing in those senior teams are from their academies. Very few you will get.
"What people don't pay attention to is the graduating process from junior, grassroots into the senior teams. So I don't know really what could have been the reason that this was closed.
"Modiba, first year he was already in the national team, that's an achievement. We gave him an exposure to go there."