Backed by the Almighty, Komphela claims the early plaudits: but can the Soweto Giants catch Mamelodi Sundowns?

KOMPHELA'S FIRST TROPHY: Kaizer Chiefs celebrate on Saturday

THE gimmicky opening game of the South African season, bizarrely re-christened the Carling Champions Cup, is NOT an accurate guide to the coming PSL season. Let's get that clear from the off.

Much of Saturday's clash was a battle between LAST SEASON’S Soweto Giants. And as expected, Kaizer Chiefs, who finished fifth in the PSL earlier this year, were too good for Orlando Pirates, who finished seventh.

It was only in the second half we started to see some of the new signings but with a myriad of substitutions, not too much can be read in to the AmaKhozi’s much-celebrated 2-0 win.

But there were encouraging signs. For once, the Black Label trophy was not decided on penalties. Tower Mathoho and Itumeleng Khune, who both immediately fly out to the Rio Olympics as over-age players, showed glimpses of real class.

Molomowanadou, the Mouth of the Lion from Venda, scored at one end and saved off the line at the other while Khune, taken off with a shin injury in a friendly for the Olympic-bound Bafana Bafana against Bidvest Wits barely a week before, looked fit - even after that nasty clash with Thamsanqa Gabuza.

Zambian signing Lewis Macha came on with a plethora of new faces late in the game and peeled off to score a near-perfect header after Pirates new signing Bernard Morrison had started threatening a super-sub equaliser.

And let’s be honest: though we joke about the same two sides always getting to the final of this pre-season, vote-for-your-life friendly, it was fun and the FNB Stadium was pleasantly packed.

Thoughts now will move on to Owen da Gama’s side and their opening Olympic clash against hosts Brazil - hopefully Khune and Mathoho will be ready to play on Thursday and a friendly against the local police will be enough to prepare our boys.

The PSL doesn’t kick off until August 23 this season but we have to make some sort of judgement based purely on 90mins of pre-season frolicking.

New Pirates boss Muhsin Etrugral and his former Free State Stars assistant Bradley Carnell were eager to point out it wasn’t as bad as it looked for Pirates fans, alluding to the army of new signings still settling at the club.

They’re right of course - but will Willard Katsande in destroyer mode and Pule Ekstein showing early form, the Buccaneers were overwhelmed in midfield, and there were worrying faults in the Sea Robbers’ defensive line for the full 90 minutes.

As always, Chiefs coach Steve Komphela  was the post-match preacher telling us how the Almighty was required and how important it was to “be a team, not a collection of players we’ve picked up”.

Earlier in the week, Komphela announced he wasn’t entirely happy with his new recruits, suggesting they weren’t his choices but as the celebrations bloomed around him on Saturday evening, he said: “I'll count the number of strikers: Macha, Letlotlo, Katsvairo, Moon, Manqele, Mthembu, eh... The list is going on and on, you must choose one.”

And really, that’s the one thing we can say about the Carling Champions Cup. Neither side got close to champion status last season but if Macha, who has just one cap for Zambia, can carry on like he did on Saturday, Komphela’s greatest headache will be relieved.

Komphela said: "I'm happy for Macha, he's a strong boy. I hope whatever we are working towards, will come out the way we wish and with the Almighty behind us, I'm sure we can make these people proud."

Like every club in South Africa apart from Mamelodi Sundowns and their CBD, finding a striker who can score ten goals in a season is all that is required for the AmaKhosi. And the Buccaneers. Let’s hope Macha or Morrison can fulfil that dream.

With Masandawana through to the African Champions League semi-finals and both SuperSport United and last season's runners-up Bidvest Wits gearing up more quietly the new season will be unpredictable.

Promoted NFD champions Boroka and play-off Highlands Park have made huge numbers of signings while the re-born Cape Town City simply cannot be assessed yet. Chippa United under Dan Malesela have mopped up some quality players from Soweto, Free State Stars are recovering form the abortive Panyaza Lesufi bid.

It's impossible to tell how the PSL will shake down this season. But two things seem likely: Sundowns will be up there again and Ea Lla Koto have a lot of work to do.

Relegated AmaZulu cough up R82m to replace Aces in the PSL: another nail in the coffin of South African football

USUTHU! anxious AmaZulu fans

DESPICABLE. DISGRACEFUL. DISASTROUS. Those are the words that come to mind as we sit here tonight, contemplating a footballing world where a relegated club can simply buy their way back in to the top flight after finishing bottom of the table.

The irony for me, of course, is that it's my favourite PSL club AmaZulu who are attempting to burgle their way back in to South Africa's crumbling PSL via the back door, using cash and an utter disregard for what FIFA calls "sporting integrity".

AmaZulu are not one of those recently formed infant clubs like Choppa, sorry Chippa, United, who sack coaches and move cities at the drop of a hat.

The jolly green giants of KwaZulu Natal captured my support when I worked and played in Durban in the early 1980s. The warcry "USUTHU" combined with the glamour of players like Joel Faya and Henry "Shaka Zulu" Cele persuaded me to write to their kit manafacturers to procure the last available xxxl replica shirt just last year.

Article 30 of the NSL constitution clearly states promotion

CANNOT be bought (from @TiisetsoMalepa)

But what they are doing is simply WRONG. To pay Mpumalanga Black Aces R82m (amounts vary) to take their place in the PSL as well as five or six of their players CANNOT BE RIGHT for South African football.

They did it once before of course. In 2007, they bought Dynamos' PSL place after relegation, and in those grim days such ridiculous shenanigans appeared acceptable practice.

But then came the FIFA circular number 1132 from Jerome Valcke, dated December 2007. Under the heading SPORTING INTEGRITY, PRINCIPLES OF PROMOTION AND RELEGATION, the despicable loophole was firmly closed.

Quoting article 2 (e) of the FIFA statutes, Valcke re-iterated the view that promotion and relegation were sacrosanct, that the global association exists to "prevent all methods or practices which might jeopardise the integrity of matches or competitions, or give rise to the abuse of association football."

In Spain, weeks before, Granada had purchased another club's name and identity in order to secure promotion, a move of such sporting injustice that FIFA felt they had to act,

The most important part of the new regulations? "A club's entitlement to take part in a domestic league championship shall depend principally on sporting merit".

It goes on to insist ONLY promotion and relegation ON THE FIELD OF PLAY would be acceptable.

The full link to that FIFA document, signed by the now-embattled Jerome Valcke, can be found HERE http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/circular_1132_en_34078.pdf

But of course, Irvin Khoza has been in charge of our PSL since the early 1990s. Quite how that happened, or how he came to be owner and chairman of Orlando Pirates remains shrouded in mystery. And boy, are we paying for it.

When AmaZulu went down in 16th and last place at the end of last season claiming Free State Stars had "fixed" their salvation, Khoza said nothing. His CEO Brand de Villiers muttered something about an "ongoing investigation" in to Free State Stars' remarkable escape from the lower reaches of the PSL. We've heard nothing since.

Then, when AmaZulu (and relegated bed-fellows Moroka Swallows) were charging about trying to persuade Bloemfontein Celtic, Polokwane City, Platinum Stars and Chippa United to sell their PSL status, Khoza said NOTHING. Neither did sports minister Fikile Mbalula, always so loud and pointless on other sporting subjects, nor Danny Jordaan, the president of the South African Football Association, now unelected mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay.

Throughout the build-up to this craziness, South African football failed to show leadership. Already in trouble over pre-World Cup match-fixing and the infamous $10m African Diaspora Fund, presumably they had other things to talk about. Like how our national football team didn't have enough players to field a team 24 hours before the clash with Mauritius at Dobsonville, or why it took nearly a year to appoint Neil Tovey as our Technical Director though he was always the only viable candidate.

And in to this awful mess, with PSL attendances slipping to record lows and the transfer market crumbling in to a slew of free transfers, bonuses for agents and contract non-renewals, AmaZulu's dreadful attempt at resurrection apparently makes barely a ripple.

But consider this, if the move goes ahead:

1 Will anybody bother to watch the "relegation dog-fight" next season if they know the side struggling to survive can simply buy their way back in?

2 If Spar's best buddy Patrick Sokhela, the AmaZulu owner, has R45m (or more, R82m according to certain reports) to spend, WHY DIDN'T HE BUY A FEW PLAYERS and avoid relegation rather than spending nothing and changing coaches three times as they slipped through the trap door?

3 What of the Aces' fans who loyally supported their club - the only PSL franchise in Mpumalanga - throughout last season? Do they get their money back now they find themselves supporting an NFD club? Will the Mbombela Stadium survive?

4 Turkish coach Muhsin Etrugral, who started pre-season before any other club in the PSL, now finds himself preparing for a season in the PSL without his top players (at least five have been told they must now move to Durban and play for AmaZulu in the PSL next season) is he REALLY going to meekly accept this deal?

5 Given Bafana Bafana's awful form - one point in AFCON2015, two penalty shoot-out failures in CONSAFA and a 0-0 draw against Africa's smallest nation Gambia to kick-off AFCON2017 qualifying - shouldn't we be considering spending money on players and creating better teams rather than buying promotion? 

What AmaZulu are doing amounts to a betrayal of South African football; the easy way out, the last-minute Iron Duke style of doing things. Instead of spending millions on fighting relegation, bringing in better players, offering bigger win bonuses, Sokhela sees fit to sack coaches and splash millions purely for status. It can't be right.

Our only hope, surely, is that FIFA or CAF will step in to make sure such a deal CANNOT happen. Sporting integrity will NOT be ground in to the dust. Sadly, given the state of both our continental and world footballing bodies, I won't be holding my breath.