adminOver the years, the Premiership had struggled to woe sponsors to the game but the top-flight family have every reason to believe that the 2011 season was one of the most enjoyable in recent years after Delta Beverages, Mbada Diamonds, BancABC and Net One strengthened their ties with the local football family by sponsoring some of the season’s major events.
PSL chief executive, Kenny Ndebele, admitted that they had a fruitful year and yesterday took time to highlight some of the achievements they made within the domestic league.
“We managed to have all our competitions sponsored starting with the Castle Lager Premiership. We managed to fulfil our programme of 240 matches although we had one match between Gunners and CAPS United that was abandoned but the issue was solved in time.
“We had the NetOne Charity Shield at the beginning of the season where the proceeds went to charitable organisations as part of our social responsibility together with NetOne. We had a cut of 15 000 people attending the match.
“The BancABC Sup8r Cup was also a successful event which was followed by the 16-team cup tournament sponsored by Mbada Diamonds.
“The winners of this tournament were supposed to represent the country in the Confederation Cup next year but Dynamos, who beat Motor Action in the final, were also the league champions and they chose to play in the Champions League.”
Ndebele said the fact that they finished the league on time was another achievement as it gave the teams playing in the Caf competitions enough time to register their players.
“We finished within time for the teams to register with Caf before the deadlines. We didn’t want to have a situation where the season would spill into the festive season and that would have seen some of the local soccer fans not giving interest into the matches.
“We had 607 000 people who paid to watch our matches this season. Another interesting thing is on the teams that were promoted at the beginning of the 2011 season.
“For some of them to have managed to hold their own meant that there was some stiff competition, even to the big teams, in the league.
“Of the four teams that were promoted at the beginning of the season, only one team was relegated unlike in some situation where all the teams get relegated.
“FC Platinum, Chicken Inn and Blue Ribbon managed to hold their own in their maiden appearance in the league,” said Ndebele.
The PSL chief executive, however, noted some areas that needs improvement, as they enter into 2012, to take the league to another level in terms of professionalism.
“We fell short in some areas and we need to look ourselves in the mirror and see how to handle such situations.
For instance, we had an abandoned match due to crowd trouble. When we look at some events we have kids as young as two attending and we also want that in soccer.
“There is also the issue of pitch invasions by fans, we need to educate our fans that they need to celebrate outside the field of play and that is one thing we are going to work with with the security agencies to ensure that we create a safe environment for the fans.
“We also need to work on the gate control to improve the situation,” Ndebele said.
The PSL boss also said there is need to improve on communication by both administrators and coaches for the good of the game.
“Communication need to improve that is by the administrators as well as the coaches. Some (coaches) were refusing to give interviews after matches and for us we can’t do without the media. We have to maintain good relations with them.
“The marketing aspect is lacking, there is need for pre-match activities and advertising. Some (teams) were waiting for the media to do previews for them and some were not detailed because the coaches were not co-operating.
“We have sponsors looking for mileage so when we don’t communicate, we are not fulfilling what we agreed,” said Ndebele.
He also said that the door was still open for sponsors who want to come on board and said clubs should be run professionally for them to attract sponsors. In terms of expectations for 2012, we expect to consolidate on what we have and improve in areas we didn’t do well. There is still room for other sponsors to come on board.
“We also expect our clubs to structure themselves in a manner that they attract sponsors,” said Ndebele
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter