Less than 24 hours before the big PSL kick-off: Irvin Khoza brings us the Q innovation

The supreme leader: PSL and Pirates boss Irvin Khoza

This is the full text of Irvin Khoza’s amazing PSL press conference yesterday. With his own Orlando Pirates kicking-off the new season against Golden Arrows at 8pm tonight, the Iron Duke appeared completely unruffled by the last-minute nature of his announcement.

I guess when you run both the South African Professional Soccer League AND the double-treble winning club that has dominated that League for the last two years, you can do what you like.

In what he calls “the Q innovation” Khoza announced that there would be R1.5m cash prizes awarded to the teams that finish top of the PSL at the end of each quarter, with the eventual title winners earning R10m. I think what Khoza is saying is that there will be four mini-leagues (Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4) all added up to a final table.

I don’t think I have ever seen the regulations of a league championship announced on the same day that the competition kicks off, not even at amateur level – but that’s not to say it’s not an interesting innovation.
My beef is with the non-sponsorship of the NFD and the offering of huge sums to journalists for correctly predicting results. That can't be right. Without any further ado, here is the FULL text of PSL chairman Khoza’s announcement this morning from the PSL official website. I'm off to dry the washing.

I have said time and time again that you cannot dry today’s washing with yesterday’s sun.

What was good enough yesterday might not be enough tomorrow. Knowing the real reasons why you are successful helps you hone in on what works and discard what doesn’t.

Sometimes it is not what you are doing but how you are doing it. Ours has become a world of instant gratification where ‘now’ is the only time. In case you are wondering where I am headed with all these philosophical annotations, here is where?

I have called you here ladies and gentlemen of the media to announce an innovation to the ABSA Premiership. It is an innovation borne out a careful sustained examination of the PSL against a backdrop contained in the annotations I made earlier.

There is no doubt that the ABSA Premiership has become a competitive league that is guaranteed to go to a photo finish season after season. In fact in the last five years the ABSA Premiership was decided in the final matches played simultaneously under circumstances where duplicate trophies and helicopters were held on ‘stand by’.

There is heightened excitement and conversation from the last eight fixtures of the league. This conversation transcends club support. It is about the permutations and probabilities.

It is about performance of teams against their rivals where factors such as venue, time of day even day of the week seem to have a bearing. It is about factors as rational as for example rival teams fighting for title contention versus a place in the top eight or avoiding relegation, to factors as irrational as teams and venues dubbed ‘hoo-doo’ teams and venues against certain teams.

The PSL Executive has therefore decided to add an innovation to the ABSA Premiership that will create and sustain the excitement and conversation experienced in the final eight fixtures of the premiership, to last for all of each team’s thirty fixtures of the season.

To achieve this, the ABSA Premiership League will from this season, from today, be divided into Four Quarters, Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. Q1 will have eight fixtures; Q2 seven; Q3 eight and Q4 seven. This means after every team has played eight games Q1 is over and Q2 starts with the re-set.

Similarly after every team has played an additional seven games Q2 will be complete and Q3 will commence with the re-set. So will Q4 commence after every team has played eight games in Q3 and the re-set.

This innovation is called the Q-innovation.

There will be a prize of R1.5 million for the teams that finish the different quarters at the top. This is over and above the R10 million prize for the overall ABSA Premiership League winner.

The prize money for the winner of the ABSA Premiership and the four Quarters is R16 million.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the greatest benefit from this innovation is how it makes every game count - every single one of the 240 ABSA Premiership games. It migrates the conversation from ‘just my club’s games’ to ‘every game played’.

Scenarios like, “How is the club that is an equal contender for the top spot against us is going to fare against the team we just drew against today or yesterday”, creates an across the board interest in all the games of the league in real time. It is like watching games on a split screen, all with a bearing on each other.

I am describing this conversation in singular and not plural although there are millions of supporters and fans conversing. I deliberately did not call it conversations because although millions are conversing, they are conversing about different aspects of the same topic. It is this convergence in conversation that this innovation seeks to consolidate.

This conversation happens in your different media platforms. The millions of supporters and fans consume their soccer through your reports and broadcasts. It is through your observations, words and images that the excitement and conversation are fuelled. Your words and images – written, heard and seen.

It is for this reason that we decided to not limit the excitement and competition to the teams alone. The PSL Executive has therefore decided to challenge you ladies and gentlemen of the media to make predictions based on your experience and thorough knowledge of the teams, game and conditions. You are after all doing this week in and week out.

The difference is that you will be submitting your predictions to the Auditors – Delloite.

The forms will be sent to every journalist on our Green 4 CRM system that is used, amongst other things, to send you invitations and media releases. This is to ensure that no journalist covering the ABSA Premiership is excluded.

The forms will require you to provide, amongst other things, your id numbers for verification purposes. It is important that you provide the information requested in the form.

As experts and celebrities in this space, your predictions will make for interesting reading. Especially since you are expected to get it all right given you only have to predict win, lose or draw – and not the scores.

With it being the nature of the beast, it expected that you will advance creative and compelling reasons for your predictions, especially the ones that miss the mark.

At the end Q1 the names of the winners, those that correctly predicted the team and points of the team that will win Q1, will be put into a draw. The winner will win R500 000 in the three categories of print, radio and television.

Your will be required to enter your predictions for the first four fixtures win, lose or draw. At the end of each team’s fourth fixture you will be requested to enter your prediction for Q1 winning team and points it will win by.

These will be kept by Delloite until the end of Q1 when the draw will be made. If not one entry predicts the correct team and points, the entries correctly identifying the team will be put into a draw from which the winner will be drawn.

The prize for the winner will in this case be R250 000 for each category – print, radio and television.

Entries for this weekend fixture, which is game one for every team this season, will close at 19h00 this evening.

Entries for all subsequent fixtures will be due one hour before kick-off of first game in that fixture block.

For example the deadline for the game 2 fixture will be 18h30 on Tuesday, 21 August 2012 for all the game 2 fixtures taking place on Wednesday 21 August and Thursday 22 August. Entries should be emailed to this email address: Qinnovation@psl.co.za.

The PSL has extensively consulted and enquired if this competition involving journalists that cover its space raises any ethical issues.

We are satisfied that just like journalism awards recognise and reward journalist without compromising the integrity of the profession, this competition does not compromise the ethics and integrity of the journalist covering the ABSA Premiership.

This inclusive competition will instead enhance the job already performed by the journalist in this space without any negative influence. You ladies and gentlemen are already making these predictions. All that is added is that you will be doing the prediction with a possibility of recognition and reward for you or charity.

I am mentioning charity as the PSL Executive has provided for journalists who are precluded from winning prize money by their employers or for any other reason can nominate a charity of their choice to be a recipient beneficiary of their prize.

Will Irvin Khoza do a Roman Abramovich? Orlando Pirates set to follow Chelsea and push the coach

ORLANDO PIRATES could be under new management by the end of the week, with assistant coach Tebogo Moloi poised to temporarily replace the unpopular Julio Leal after two weeks of unrest in the camp.

Following the Sowetan giants’ failure to progress in the African Champions League on Sunday, no-nonsense supremo Irvin Khoza will hold a “crisis meeting to map out the future” today, with the results expected to be announced later this week.

Coach out, assistant in? Sounds familiar, doesn’t it: Buccaneers or Blues? It matters not. This week, parallels between west London and Soweto have never been more significant. At Orlando Pirates today, chairman Khoza is deciding whether he should do a Roman Abramovich and fire the coach after less than a season in charge.

On Sunday, 5,000 miles north of Soweto, the young Portuguese coach at Chelsea, Andre Villas Boas, found himself ditched after less than eight months in charge after Saturday’s shocking 1-0 defeat against West Brom. Though the Blues remain in contention for the Champions League – they must overcome a 3-1 deficit against Napoli at Stamford Bridge next week – and face an FA Cup replay against Birmingham tomorrow night – AVB’s “project” was derailed. At 34, the man who started his coaching career as a scout under Jose Mourinho, finds himself unemployed. But not for long given the Portuguese League, Cup and Europa League he won last season.

At around the same time on Sunday, Leal put out a Pirates side without experienced – and hugely popular - striker Benni McCarthy in Angola as he attempted to overturn a 3-1 deficit against Libolo in Calulo. A desperate 1-1 draw ensued, with McCarthy coming on as a late substitute in a game marred by controversial injuries, a disallowed goal and a brief touchline brawl.

Unlike AVB in London, Leal hasn’t done that badly on the field. His side are currently third in the race to defend their league title, they start their Nedbank Cup defence at the weekend and they have already won the Telkom Knockout and MTN Super-eight.

The problem is that, like AVB, Leal has, as we said here last week, lost the dressing room.

AVB’s “project” was to ease out the old Mourinho mob at Chelsea – thirtysomethings Didier Drogba, John Terry, Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard. He failed. Lamps, often left on the bench this season, went public with his “problems with the boss”.

At Pirates, Leal frequently leaves the 34-year-old, slightly overweight McCarthy on the bench, much to the chagrin of the black-and-white clad Ghost and his anxious team-mates. Leal also chooses to stick to his own particular methods and his broken English tends to result in frequent misunderstandings with the staff and players, who won the treble last season under the still-unemployed Dutch master Ruud Krol.

Abramovich has acted. In a brief phone call from the Russian elections on Sunday, he sacked AVB and put Roberto di Matteo, his assistant in charge.

Today, “Iron Duke” Khoza finds himself under pressure to act. Both he and Abramovich are rich, powerful men; they don’t suffer fools gladly, they don’t see losing as an option.

Like AVB, Leal has had eight brief months to sort things out. To persuade both players and fans he is the right man for the job. Like Chelsea, Pirates have as assistant waiting in the wings to take charge on a temporary basis. The difference between Tebogo Moloi and Robert di Matteo is that Moloi is relatively popular with the squad. Di Matteo is nothing of the sort. According to this morning’s Sun in London, he is “even more unpopular than AVB”.

There’s a chance, of course, the Leal – whose brother Jairo helps Pitso Mosimane at Bafana Bafana – will stay in his precarious position for a while longer. But ultimately, it’s only a matter of time before Irvin Khosa does a Roman Abramovich.

At Chelsea, the ghost of Jose Mourinho still lurks – he was seen house-hunting in London last week and is believed to be ready to leave Real Madrid once he’s wrapped up La Liga. In Orlando, Ruud Krol still stalks the stadia with his notebook and appearances on Robert Marawa’s Thursday Live. But it’s not always the obvious candidates who get the job. Watch this space.

Platinum starring role looms for Pirates treble-winning coach Ruud Krol

Ruud awakening: Krol is on his way to Platinum Stars

RUUD KROL, the coach so rudely dumped by Orlando Pirates after winning the fabled treble last season, will be back in top flight South African management with Platinum Stars before the end of the week.
The Dutchman, linked to a number of roles since Irvin Khosa's bizarre decision to part company with his manager after the Buccaneers most successful season on record, will replace ailing Stars boss Owen Da Gama after last night's dramatic 4-3 defeat against Krol's former club.
In perhaps the best game of the South African season so far, Benni McCarthy made a late third goal for Tokela Rantie before scoring himself with a powerful header to make it 402.
But in injury time, the Stars pulled on back and only an injury-time save from Man of the Match Monieb Josephs denied the Phokeng side a share of the points.
While we recovered breathless from those scenes, word emerged that
Rudolf Josef Krol, now 62, played 83 games for Holland and was part of the Rinus Michels revolution which produced "total football" in the 1970s.
The Dikwena are not a side without backing. King Lerui is ready to put substantial Platinum profits in to the side since moving them to the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace three seasons ago - and managing director Floyd Mbele is under pressure to find a boss who can justify that investment, having parted company with the impressive Steve Komphela, now doing well at Free States Stars, two years ago.
The Stars haven't won a game since October 15, when they downed struggling Capetonians Santos 4-1. And that's why Krol was in the stands at the Palace last night frantically scribbling notes as he prepares to guide the club out of trouble.
South African football fans woke up this morning to find their celebrations over last night's epic win ruined by the death of former Bafana Bafana star Thabang Lebese at Helen Joseph hospital. He was admitted in a "serious state" last week and the former Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs star died this morning from an undisclosed illness.

Benni McCarthy: The bee's knees or busted knees? That's the question that has to be asked

In so many ways, Benni McCarthy's much-hyped move to Orlando Pirates is exactly what the South African Premier League has been crying out for.

An experienced, Champions League-winning South African professional arriving back in Soweto's District 18 eager to end his career with a bang. Bafana Bafana's all-time top-scorer joining South Africa's treble-winning Champions promising to become the first man to win Champions League medals in both Europe and Africa.

On Robert Marawa's excellent Discovery Sports Centre (you can't miss it from 6-7.30pm every day on www.metrofm.co.za) Benni told us on Tuesday night: "I'm not here for a holiday, I'm here to give something back. This is not my retirement plan, I want to get out there and score goals for Pirates."

In my story which ran in the Cape Argus two Saturdays before, I expressed exactly those sentiments. Hoping the new, svelte Benni would return to South Africa for one final goal rush. You can read it here: http://neal-collins.blogspot.com/2011/07/mccarthy-in-no-rush-to-secure-new-club.html.

Since then, Benni has left Ajax Cape Town where he was "getting back to full fitness" and, barely 24 hours after being seen with Pirates' supremo Irvin Khosa at last Saturday's Carling Black Label Cup final, he signed his lucrative two-year deal and inherited the No17 Buccaneers shirt. Cue wild celebrations nationwide, except for jealous fans of Kaizer Chiefs, Ajax and Sundowns.

So everyone’s happy. But the worrying aspect is this: Benni gushed similar sentiments when he left Blackburn Rovers to join West Ham United for £2.5m (R26m) in January 2010. He called it his “dream move” and promised he had plenty of goals left in him at 32. But when push came to shove, he went down injured after a single game (a brief appearance in the defeat against Burnley), put on weight, was fined twice and missed the World Cup in his home country, dropped by Bafana Bafana despite claiming to be fit.

While his agent Rob Moore insisted he was "back to his fighting weight" after the World Cup, West Ham then left McCarthy out of their playing squad at the start of the year and despite a goal-scoring trial at Queens Park Rangers, the Hammers offered the 33-year-old £1.5m (R16m) to cut short his contract at Upton Park earlier this year.

The British newspapers had a field day, describing McCarthy as “a flop” and “a fat misfit”. And now I've got West Ham fans blowing bubbles over the concept of McCarthy being the next big thing in the South African Premier League. Some of them even tuned in to his live interview online at MetroFM on Tuesday night. They were flabbergasted to hear the man who failed to score a goal for relegated West Ham promising the world, telling us: "My love for football is back, I can't wait to start playing."

But he may have to wait. After Wednesday's open session with his new team-mates, Pirates tell us McCarthy is not fit. That he won't play in the opening MTN8 clash against Santos on Sunday at Orlando's Super Stadium. He needs "more tests".

Officially, his new boss Julio Leal said: “It was a good deal for Benni to come back home, to play under the eye of his critics. He’s a player who’s got international experience. He played at the highest level and scored goals there. He needs to work on certain aspects to be fully fit. We will do tests and take a decision on whether he plays on Saturday.”

I put up the picture above on Facebook and Twitter and took some fierce stick for suggesting the blood tests he was being subjected to on Wednesday should have been taken before a 33-year-old who couldn't get fit at West Ham for a year was signed on a two-year contract.

I’ve been accused of having something personal against McCarthy. But, with player, club and fans in mind, I'm right. Nobody wants Benni to succeed more than me. Both my son and I wear Orlando Pirates jerseys with pride, happy to make the Buccaneers' skull-and-crossbones sign to friend and foe alike.

But has Benni had the full medical? Has he got another two well-paid years at the pinnacle of African football in him? I certainly hope so. Google “Benni McCarthy” and “medical” on google news and there are no results. The club won’t comment.

Why am I so concerned? Because I can't help going back to that moment in early February 2010, when a man called Kevin Keen, the former West Ham first team coach now at Liverpool, wandered over to me while our boys were playing football together in Buckinghamshire.

I asked Kevin, who had just attended my World Cup book launch in our village bookstore at Chalfont St Peter, if Benni would be fit to spearhead South Africa's World Cup challenge on home soil.

He grimaced and said: "Benni's not looking good. He has a knee problem. South Africa may be in trouble if they think he's going to be their major World Cup striker."

I wrote http://www.iol.co.za/sport/injury-set-to-rule-benni-out-of-world-cup-1.613865 on February 26 last year, nearly four months before the World Cup kick-off. His agent Rob Moore rubbished my story as "lazy journalism" and “pure speculation”. It wasn't. It was fact, as we found out on June 1, when Benni was axed by Carlos Alberto Parreira and I wrote this: http://neal-collins.blogspot.com/2010/06/benni-mccarthys-world-cup-dream-is-over.html.

Now decide for yourself. Read those stories. Read the more recent blogs on McCarthy. Have a look at the picture above. Am I simply having a go at the great Benni McCarthy, South Africa's all-time top scorer? Or am I hoping he had a full medical before he put pen to paper at Pirates and that he will, gloriously, go on to lift an African Champions League medal to go to the one he won with Jose Mourinho's Porto in 2004?

Truth is, I wish Benni McCarthy all the best. He talks a great game, he has scored great goals, he will sell tickets all over South Africa this season. But that will only happen if the knee, originally injured while playing for Blackburn in 2007, stands up to the strain, his weight stays down... and he really is here to do the business, not enhance his retirement fund at the expense, ultimately, of the Buccaneers fans who pay to watch him and buy his replica shirt.

There is no hidden agenda. I just want Benni to go out with a bang. Not a whimper.