The South African transfer window: is it open or is it broken?

Forgotten man: Tenda Ndoro at Orlando Pirates

THE official PSL account on twitter announced it proudly at exactly 8am this morning: “The domestic transfer window is officially open.”

After that, just the creak of that opening window and tumbleweed blowing through the league’s offices in Parktown until the closing of a slightly cracked window at 5pm on Friday, January 29.

Sadly, the South African transfer system appears to be broken. Or at the very least, in need of a thorough clean. Every six months we talk about big moves that SHOULD happen, how our R9m record fee SHOULD be broken, how Kaizer Chiefs or Orlando Pirates SHOULD have enough money for a match-winner.

But it simply doesn’t happen. In fact, since Mamelodi Sundowns stopped spending Patrice Motsepe’s billions two seasons ago, our transfer market has become something of a joke.

While the rest of the football-speaking world lashes out record-breaking millions, the best a PSL club has ever managed was the reputed R9m Sundowns played Ajax Cape Town for Khama Billiat in August 2013.

In current terms, R9m amounts to about 400,000 British pounds. Even third tier clubs pay more than that in Europe. Remember, when they were still a Championship club, Bournemouth paid 2.5m (R70m) for Bafana Bafana striker Tokelo Rantie in August 2013, around the same time Billiat was leaving Cape Town for Tshwane. And he’s played 10mins in the Premier League this season.

The enormous fees paid in Europe cannot be matched in Africa... but the collapse of South Africa's fee-system remains a staggering but unwritten sensation.

There are obvious players who SHOULD demand more than R9m in the PSL today. Siphelele Ntshangase languishes with NFD club Black Leopards, teenager Phakamani Mahlambi and his Bidvest Wits team-mate Sibusiso Vilakasi should be tempting the Soweto giants.

And for lesser fees, Tendai Ndoro, Thabo Qalinge, David Zulu and Lehlohonolo Majoro are among the obvious targets as they warm benches at Pirates and Chiefs. And then you have the current PSL top scorers, Daine Klate and Collins Mbesuma, two men let go by the big clubs, plying their trade with significant success for Wits and Mpumalanga Black Aces.

So will we see a big transfer swoop this window? Probably not. In South Africa, coaches are rarely allowed to splash out money like they are in Europe. Here, technical directors and general managers do the deals directly with agents.

As I have documented here many times, Stuart Baxter left Chiefs because Bobby Motaung would not allow him a say on recruitment after last season's record breaking PSL title triumph. James Keene, the English journeyman who trialled brightly at Naturena, has just been snapped up by Gavin Hunt and Jose Ferreira at big-spending minnows Wits a year after Chiefs refused to make a move.

The problem is the agent/club link. Transfer fees are seen as money "wasted" when it can be split between the officials involved in the deal. The days of small clubs part-funding themselves with transfer fees from the giants appear to be over.

That’s why Tim Sukazi, currently the most successful agent in South Africa thanks to his strong links to national coach Shakes Mashaba, shifted his players around a year ago. Tshepo Gumede and Siyabonga Mpontshane went to Orlando Pirates while Tlou Segolela went the other way to Platinum Stars. All three were presented as BIG SIGNINGS but in truth, it was a swap deal which has resulted in very little for either club but a nice slice of the pie for everyone involved except the clubs.

When Kaizer Chiefs top scorer Mandla Masango and PSL player of the season Tefu Mashamaite were not given new contracts after winning the championship last year, neither of them could find a local club willing to step in. Incredibly, they both had to decamp to Scandinavia to get a game.

Meanwhile, Kaizer Chiefs announced the "big transfers" of Siyanda Xulu, Keegan Ritchie, Daniel Cardoso, Camaldine Abraw (amid some controversy), Bongani Ndulula, Edward Manqele and, later, an unknown Ugandan called Sula Matovu.

Oh, and they also tried to present Sibongiseni Ngcobo and Andisiwe Mtsila, two “academy” lads, as new signings, along with Lucky Baloyi, because he hadn’t gone out on loan. And, finally, they did a new deal with goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune, clearly on Bobby's terms.

Go through those names. Look for the transfer fees. Try to guess the salaries. These weren’t transfers, these were deals struck between Bobby Motaung and various agents. Neither the out-going Stuart Baxter nor new coach Steve Komphela had any say.

In truth, the European-style transfer swoop is dead in South Africa. That magical, morale-boosting grab, like Petr Cech going to Arsenal for £10million or Anthony Martial to Manchester United for £36million just won’t happen.

There is no transparency in our transfer market. Just as the PSL refuses to give us crowd figures, so we are denied ANY INSIGHT in to fees or salaries. Fans and journalists alike work in the dark. We know the big clubs have plenty of money - Vodacom, Carling and Absa offer millions - but we have no idea where it goes.

While the fans rush around talking in excited tones about Vilakazi going to Kaizer Chiefs after Bobby Motaung (illegally) said he wants to go, the agents are shifting around New Zealanders (five at the last count) and age-cheating journeymen in deeply dodgy dealings with the likes of Motaung and Screamer Tshabalala while their chairmen are given sketchy details.

SuperSport United led the way in the last window. Dean Furman, Bongani Khumalo and Michael Boxall all arrived from foreign fields (along with a couple of others from Down Under) and we all knew money was being spent but HOW MUCH? And WHY? Mike Makaab, fashionable when Gordon Igesund was Bafana coach, is now Stanley Matthews' best pal, along with a chap called Glyn Binkin, architect of such memorable deals as Katlego Mphela and Morgan Gould to Chiefs.

Just as South African football craves disappearing spray, goal-line technology, disciplinary reviews and referee assessments (and less mid-season breaks), so we need a transfer market that we can all see and appreciate.

Watch closely as this January transfer window saga unfolds. Look for real, serious signings designed to lift a club out of the doldrums. Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates get R50m a year from Vodacom. They should both be spending, given their current positions. Both coaches Steve Komphela and Eric Tinkler are under huge pressure... yet they have no say in who comes and goes.

R10m for Vilakazi, Ntshangase, Abbubaka Mobara or Mahlambi should be possible. Ndoro, Majoro, David Zulu and Ndulula should find new homes. But if certain people don’t get their cut, it won’t happen. If the right agent isn’t wandering around outside the gate with his cell phone, players will remain unhappy and unfulfilled. And so will the fans.

And we’ll end up with more mysterious moves of no-name foreigners and has-beens. 

Record-breaking transfers? Exciting last-minute deals? We can only hope. You have been warned.

South African football is in crisis, and here's why (includes video)

ONCE A PIRATE: Irvin Khoza, PSL chairman

DISKI Mzanzi is in crisis. South African football faces falling attendances, a dying transfer market, a merry-go-round of FOURTEEN coaching changes in a 16-team league.


We have barely recovered from an AFCON which saw Bafana garne JUST A SINGLE POINT when both of our African Champions League "giants" - leaders Kaizer Chiefs and current PSL champions Mamelodi Sundowns - went crashing out in the first round.


There were no refereeing blunders, there was no intimidation, just humiliation. Failure.



This morning on the South African 24-hour news channel ANN7 (205 on your DSTV bouquet) I appeared on Peter van Onselen's "Phuka" morning show in an attempt to get across the true depth of the crisis facing our game. Though my football writing colleagues will rail against it and Twitter will issue threats, it's only the truth.



Denigrating South African football is not my agenda. Improvement, change, even revolution is needed. Just like Issa Hayatou, PSL chairman Irvin Khoza, the man who took over Orlando Pirates in the early 1990s, is in his late 60s and has been in charge of the game in this country for over 20 years.


And quite apart from the problems highlighted above, Khoza runs a club which closed its academy due to age cheating, he has refused to promote Eric Tinkler from his caretaker role despite unprecedented success and though his club pulls in MILLIONS in sponsorship, he refuses to spend money on his team.

He can't even run his club properly, let alone the PSL. And I am reliably informed it was Khoza who dictated the new conditions for agents in this country after FIFA's recommended treatment for "intermediaries"... though the legislation promised on April 1 has failed to materialise.


This is not an anti-Khoza rant, just a polite request for change. For truth. Though the South African media big guns - particularly Robert Marawa, Thomas Mlambo and the excitable Sunday Times "sports editor" BBK - will deny it, our game is not healthy.


As I say in the video below, our clubs don't scout for players, the rely on agents. Though there is a reputed R14,000-a-month minumum wage in the PSL, many youngsters are on a fraction of that. I know of one who has played 10 first team games this season and is on R2,000 a month. Another who played for Bafana at COSAFA and is on R6000... about the level of a supermarket shelf stacker.


From the bottom to the top - where Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates join billionaire Patrice Motsepe's Sundowns as the only clubs in the financial comfort zone - were are watching our game fall apart. There is no investment, no marketing, no sign of grass roots growth from Danny Jordaan's infamous FIFA Legacy Fund, a R500m post-World Cup 2010 bonus.


I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but it would be handy if a few people opened their eyes to the truth. Dr Khoza himself has acknowledged the influence of agents on our national head coaches; we have done NOTHING to establish who was involved in the pre-World Cup match-fixing scandal... SAFA won't even discuss their two most recent promises of a Technical Director and a statue for the murdered captain Senzo Meyiwa.



I don't make these things up. I don't enjoy endless repetition of the negative. But SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

SuperSport United CEO Stanley Matthews lifts the lid on the transfer window, Majoro's U-turn... and 13 years of Tim Sukazi

Making his point: SuperSport United CEO Stan Matthews

STANLEY MATTHEWS, the SuperSport United CEO, lifted the lid on the problems agents create in the transfer market last night but insisted: “It happens all over the world.”

Talking on my football show BOLLOCKZ! on www.ballz.co.za, former PSL CEO Matthews refused to condemn striker Lehlonolo Majoro for his “u-turn” on joining SSU from Kaizer Chiefs, arguing “every player has that right”.

Matthews pointed to a 13-year relationship with Lehlonololo Majoro’s agent Tim Sukazi – and insisted all is well between them despite last night’s release of a statement revealing Majoro was set to move to Orlando Pirates  (see http://neal-collins.blogspot.com/2014/01/full-text-of-agent-tim-sukazi-statement.html).

Matthews had publicly confirmed Majoro’s move to Tshwane but was forced to backtrack. But he remains unfazed, saying: “They call the transfer window the silly season all around the world, not just in South Africa. Sometimes it can become complex unnecessarily.

“You’re always going to have situations where there’s things go wrong. The biggest problem for me is sometimes the role of agents in transfer dealings, they make it more complicated.

“Agents come in and colour the issue, some of them multiple deal, you think you’re moving in one direction but behind the scenes things are happening you aren’t aware of. But it does happen around the world, where these shenanigans happen.

“Last week we had to take it on the chin (when the George Maluleka swap deal with Majoro fell through) and we did. Hopefully things are better this week!

“There’s not a lot of good agents in this country. You have to develop a working relationship with people, like I have with Majoro’s agent, Tim Sukazi.

“We’ve been working together 13 years, he’s never ever told me something that didn’t happen or confirmed something that was wrong. I took his word on it – that’s what happens.

“Sometimes the player has to stand up and take responsibility. But in the end, it isn’t the agent who signs the contract, it is the player. The agent is there to represent the will of the player. I’d been informed on one story the whole way through with Majoro, but at the last minute that changed.

“Two things have to happen in a transfer:  the two clubs need to agree and the player needs to agree personal terms. We had the same situation with Manyama (Ajax and Chiefs had agreed, gone public… but Manyama ended up at SSU) and Majoro. The player did a u-turn. Players have the right to play where they want to play.

“We withdrew our offer, we’ve moved on quite publicly and to be quite honest with you, not two days ago, the agent was back asking me if we would take Majoro on a six month loan.

“But we’ve closed that chapter and by then we were working on other players. We’re very excited about Dino Ndlovu arriving on loan – and he is available to play against Orlando Pirates (at the Orlando Stadium tomorrow, 3.30pm).

“We really have nothing else to say on the issue: Good luck to Majoro wherever he ends up playing. He’s a quality player, he’s got goals in him.”

With Thato Mokeke – one of the finds of the current CHAN tournament for Bafana - and Clayton Daniels both signing pre-contracts, Matthews said: “There was always going to be a reshuffle after Gavin Hunt left. Cavin Johnson came in, started nicely, slipped back a little bit, but certainly by next year we’d like to be in a position to win the title.

“If we have a good run, anything is possible this season too – we are in the top six. Let’s see how it goes against Pirates.”

BOLLOCKZ! my own football show on www.ballz.co.za, airs every Thursday from 9am. See the Ballz channel on www.YouTube.com for our growing collection of interviews with the big names in South African football.

You can also follow me on www.twitter.com/nealcol for all the latest sports news… and read my “Neal and Pray” column every Tuesday in www.thenewage.co.za.

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