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SAfrican clubs hoping to benefit from Confed CupPosteddocument.write(niceDate('6/29/2009 5:45 AM')); 2h 56m ago | Comment | Recommend E-mail | Save | Print | 
By Stuart Condie, AP Sports Writer
JOHANNESBURG — While the Confederations Cup has given South Africa a clearer picture of the state of its national team and readiness to host next year's World Cup, the situation facing its clubs is foggier.
A 16-team league closely modeled on England's lucrative Premier League means the South African game is richer and at arguably its highest ever standard, but the legacy of the apartheid era and cultural attitudes still prevent the sport from reaching its full potential.
The relationship between money and football is a complex one at the best of times and perhaps even more so in South Africa.
Premier League Soccer's monthly retainer and the appearance fee paid to teams for each televised match allows clubs to give players better salaries. But a taste of success and the lure of the even more lucrative contracts on offer from top European sides means even powerhouse clubs Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates struggle to keep top players in the country.
"We've got to start people playing for the pride of the nation, make them understand the responsibility they have," Moroka Swallows interim coach Zeca Marques said. "One of the drawbacks in South African football is that it's money-driven. We all are, but I always say if you're money driven and you're in sport, you're in the wrong business.
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"It's a question of time. It's a culture that's entrenched. When you come from a poverty background, you'll be even more money driven, but that's understandable. When you don't have money, you want to chase money."
Backed by mining magnate Patrice Motsepe, the Mamelodi Sundowns reputedly pay players as much as 200,000 rand ($25,292; euro17,943) per month, in a country with one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world.
And when even devoted fans can accuse players of being mercenary -- most recently when reports surfaced of the national squad asking for bigger bonuses at the Confederations Cup -- it is understandable that football struggles to win new supporters in a country where more than 20 percent of the population is unemployed.
And leaving aside wages, players can still be swayed by the chance to win greater fame and increase their earning potential from sponsorship by joining a club in Europe's Champions League.
"It's serious money," Marques said of the cash on offer in South Africa. "Average salary nowadays is maybe 50,000 rand ($6,323; euro4,486) a month. You can get a hell of a good living out of that.
"Obviously guys would be tempted to play in Sweden, Norway, places like that, and there is the temptation to go there for exposure, but from a lifestyle point of view they have a problem."
Hanging on to top players is an essential part of building a league attractive to fans and sponsors, and the PSL has already helped improve things dramatically.
The league started in 1996 at the instigation of four businessman, including the Soweto-born Kaizer Motaung, who spent two years from 1968 playing for the Atlanta Chiefs in the now-defunct North American Soccer League.
Motaung founded Kaizer Chiefs in 1970 and named the club in honor of his American team, as did another of the PSL founders, Jomo Sono, when he took the name of the New York Cosmos and renamed Highlands Park as Jomo Cosmos in 1982.
"The PSL has made huge strides in professionalizing football in all aspects -- the marketing, the stadiums, the prize money," Marques said. "There's more money in football now, so you can demand more from the players."
Until the PSL, South African clubs drew largely on English coaches and often antiquated training methods.
"The guys were there, but the coaching was old style, it wasn't professional enough," Marques said. "Football has come a long way since then -- in all aspects. We had a lot of English coaches come here after the World Cup in 1966, some Portuguese guys, some Brazilian, some South American, but predominantly English.
"So the style was 4-4-2, physical, get stuck in, long balls, Route 1 and that's how we played. And that's also how we trained. Football scientifically has only really evolved in the last 15 years."
Marques qualified for his UEFA pro-license to coach in his native Portugal and says the league now needs to enforce rules on who can manage teams if it is serious about raising standards.
"In South Africa, they have a license, but it's so far behind us and they don't enforce it on a regular basis," Marques said. "There are three or four of us guys qualified in South Africa, but the rest, they just learn from what's been passed on."
Football emerged from the apartheid era being played in crumbling stadiums in front of impoverished fans.
Years of segregated leagues and the apartheid state's preference for the "white" sport of rugby means football has yet to shake its tag as a "black" sport, hindering efforts to attract sponsors and win fans from across society.
"In brand building, if sponsors only see people without money it's difficult to get them on board because there's no power for this group of customers to buy their stuff," PSL chief executive Kjetil Siem said. "By having whites and Indians on board, you are representing the whole nation, which has an enormous commercial value and shows the blacks that are soccer fans that they can continue without feeling that 'I don't have money."'
Many white fans attended the national team's Confederations Cup matches and are expected to do so again at next year's World Cup. The challenge for the PSL is to keep hold of those supporters, rather than let them drift back to rugby and golf.
"If we the PSL take a step back after those two tournaments and don't achieve anything in respect of clean stadiums, ticketing, the proper way of doing it and not seeing the fans as a herd but individuals who have their needs, then we might not keep them," Siem said.
But of the PSL clubs, only Wits University owns its own ground, and that is the 5,000-capacity Bidvest Stadium.
That means clubs have traditionally switched stadiums with a frequency bewildering to European observers and cannot fully exploit the venues financially, as Manchester United and Arsenal are able to do in England by staging tours, rock concerts and other sporting events.
"There is that potential, but unfortunately 90 percent or even 100 percent of the clubs are individually owned," Marques said. "So as an owner, if you don't have the vision to create something that's long term and beneficial to you by investing now and reaping the rewards later, it's a problem.
"A lot of them could take the gamble. The Chiefs, the Pirates, the Swallows, the list is endless. They have the support, they have been there for years. A majority could create their own facilities but unfortunately a lot of owners want to keep the money in their pocket. That's the problem."
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