Guest blog post by Mohlomi Maubane in Soweto, South Africa
One of South Africa’s iconic tournaments, the Telkom Charity Cup, is no more. PSL chairman Irvin Khoza’s announcement this week brought down the curtain on what was arguably one of the most loved tournaments in the country.
The Charity Cup made its debut in 1986 as the Iwisa Maize Meal Spectacular. This one-day tournament quickly established itself as the domestic season opener. It featured four teams battling off in the semifinals, with the victors meeting in the final later in the day. Local football fans voted for the four teams that took part in the tournament, making the Charity Cup the most interactive professional soccer platform in South Africa. It also served to gear-up fans for the start of the new season.
And now the Charity Cup is no more, with rather puzzling reasons being given for its demise. Khoza explained that the Charity Cup was cancelled to reduce fixture congestion and player fatigue. He added that other knockout tournaments could not be cancelled as they served as qualifiers for international competitions.
Utter nonsense. First, how is canceling a one-day tournament going to reduce fixture congestion? Second, how can players’ fatigue be adversely affected by a one-day tournament at the start of the season? Third, PSL teams have long been apathetic toward African club competitions such as the Champions League and Confederation Cup. Most South African teams prefer to bypass the chance for African adventure for short-term riches at home. So it is disingenuous at best to claim that participation in continental tournaments requires burying the Charity Cup.
If the way to tell when a politician is lying is to see their lips moving, then everything said by a football administrator in South Africa should be taken with a truckload of salt. If there was a tournament worthy of being taken off the local football calendar, it is the Vodacom Challenge. This pre-season tournament features the most popular teams in the country — Orlando Pirates (owned by Khoza) and Kaizer Chiefs — playing against English Premier League opposition. Even though it also essentially entails three matches, it lasts an entire week and no other matches are played when it’s contested.
Methinks the logical reason why the Charity Cup and not the Vodacom Challenge fell to the proverbial axe is because the latter lines up the pockets of some local football heavyweights, while the former mainly benefits numerous charity organizations in the country. Talk about giving a new meaning to ‘charity begins at home’.
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