The South African Football Association (SAFA) proposes to increase number of teams in Dstv Premier League to 18. The football governing body is not happy with the pool of players available when selecting for Bafana Bafana and national junior teams. They also wants to bring back National First Division leagues.
The SAFA committee , made an appearance in the Parliament’s portfolio committee on sports, arts and culture on Friday. The league currently host 16 teams, with one team getting automatic relegation and one team from Motsepe foundation getting an automatic promotion. The team finishing 15th in the league is given a chance with three other teams from Motsepe Foundation in play offs. Currently PSL has a total of 32 teams in both divisions.
With the two soccer governing bodies having a history of not seeing eye to eye, it will be a hard to reach an agreement or SAFA convincing the parliament committee. The PSL acting Chief Executive Officer Mato Madlala could not be reached for comment, when media tried to contact him, it is a battle between SAFA and PSL.
The parliament’s portfolio committee chairperson Mthenjwa was somehow worried about SAFA ‘s proposal. He asked the football governing body how feasible was their plan, and reminded SAFA the reason why PSL reduced the number of teams from 18 to 16. The way things are going it looks like SAFA did not discuss the proposal with PSL first.
Currently the teams in Motsepe Foundation league are required to have a minimum of three players from South Africa Under 23, in an effort to boost and increase pool of players for the natinal junior side. The national teams are struggling with Bafana Bafana making it to the Afcon finals this year, after failing to qualify in the last two Afcon finals.
