“We have now Craven Rugby, can we have Craven Week Football? Then we will also be given our players a chance in football and education,” Teboho Moloi told SABC News at the relaunch of the Solomon “Stix” Morewa Tournament.
The former Orlando Pirates legend and assistant coach would like to see our football learn from sporting codes like cricket and rugby, who have been very successful at the top level of their respective games.
“Before we never used to have Varsity Football, we only had Varsity Rugby, now we have Varsity football. We have Craven week rugby, we can also have Craven Week Football.”
Teboho Moloi has a point, but establishing a new competition at school’s football is only solving half of the problem. These tournaments exist in rugby and cricket, but you need to understand why they work, and why they are able to develop players of an international level.
The first thing they have is adequate funding. Which means that educated coaches oversee the development of quality cricket and rugby players at specific schools. To add to this, the identification of the right players is crucial in the development of any sport. The system in place allows the best of the best to rise to the top without fear or favour.
The structure in place is like no other, because when a kid leaves school and he is not at the level where he can walk straight into a Currie Cup team, he joins a varsity team or provincial development team instead. If not, he joins a club team where he can still further develop, because the coaches in rugby are qualified, educated coaches. That is the difference and why these sports are striving at an elite level. To the point where countries are now poaching our players as soon as they leave school.
This raises questions as to what our professional football clubs are doing, and getting wrong. To the point where we see average players being developed, and a national team that struggles to qualify for a African Cup of Nations or the FIFA World Cup.
The announcement of the relaunch of the Solomons “Stix” Morewa tournament as another outlet of development is great, but shouldn’t this be the responsibility of PSL clubs? They all have academies that supposedly have the ability to identify and develop top players. If this was being done correctly, the standard of the PSL would be much higher, Bafana would be doing much better, and we would have a decent amount of players preforming in the biggest leagues in the world. This was the case in the past, the question is, why is it no longer the case?
Read more:
Teboho Moloi names his best ever PSL XI
Why Pirates legend won’t be hurt by MTN8 final loss
