Khoza salutes DStv, welcomes ideas for Premiership from new title ...
Premier Soccer League (PSL) chair Irvin Khoza paid tribute to DStv for its backing of the Premiership through difficult times in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, and welcomed the ideas of new sponsor Betway.
Khoza announced a “three-year sponsorship worth about R900m” for the Betway Premiership at the PSL offices in Parktown on Wednesday, as DStv ended its five-year deal — signed in September 2020 — a year early.
“Beyond this press conference, we now have Betway as a sponsor of the league. Thank you very much DStv Premiership sponsor,” Khoza said.
“It was done this way because it was part of the plan, a long time ago. We in the executive committee know that, other people and the media don’t know that. And I’m happy to welcome to the podium [Betway CEO] Laurence Michel to talk about himself. He’s got a team, he’s going to introduce them. Congratulations for being part of the PSL.”
Michel said the Premiership deal reinforces Betway’s influence in sponsorships in the major sports in South Africa.
“Betway as an international brand has been integrally involved in sports sponsorships. Our principle partner is West Ham in the English Premier League. We are also the betting partners of Arsenal, Brighton and Atletico Madrid, to name a few,” he said.
“In the short time Betway has been represented in the South African market, coming up to six years in September, its commitment to furthering South African sport is evident. If you look at the four major sporting codes, we now have the Betway Premiership in football, SA20 in cricket, the Summer Cup in horse racing and in rugby we are [an associate] sponsor of the Springboks. So this completes the picture for us, and it’s a great picture.”
Khoza praised DStv for coming on board in perhaps the PSL’s most trying hour. DStv replaced Absa in September 2020, as football was returning from the global suspension of sports after Covid-19 shutdowns, when domestic football was reeling from the economic effects of the pandemic, as games were played in front of empty stadiums.
DStv’s sports channel, SuperSport, remains the PSL’s official broadcast partner. “Today we’ve got a channel, 202 [dedicated to the PSL on SuperSport], and that’s unheard of, where anything we want to produce or promote we have that [platform],” said Khoza.
“There are things we do as the PSL when we build a calendar. We first make sure we include the Fifa dates, but also there are Caf [Confederation of African Football interclub] fixtures, where we leave leeway in case teams cannot make it back in time, with alternate dates plotted into the calendar.
“We now know when Afcon [the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers] are taking place — [previously] nobody was sure. The other competitions that affect the league, we were not sure. So when you plot your fixtures with those uncertainties, it creates a problem.
“... We [also] all know the season was abnormal last season, in the sense that there was Afcon and we also had to change about eight games to accommodate [Bafana Bafana being] bronze medallists. [Mamelodi] Sundowns played about 58 games, [Orlando] Pirates 45, SuperSport 43, Stellenbosch 41 — it’s a killer.
“And the national team players played more games — the issue of recovery is a problem. Imagine we had still played our games until July 18 or longer like Egypt. It would be chaotic. But we managed our fixtures in support of our partners and sponsors remarkably. I can tell you the league [in fact, the MTN8] is starting on August 3. The CEO [Mato Madlala] will be issuing the fixtures this [Wednesday] afternoon.”
