Why are PSL crowds generally so small? The exception was the MTN first leg between Pirates and Sundowns at Orlando Stadium, which was a full house. Why is this not a regular occurrence, and why was this game such an exception?
We posed the very same question to prominent Amakhosi supporter Mama Fefe, as we did with her fellow Kaizer Chiefs FC supporter Masilo Machaka.
“Our clubs people who own, manage, or work for various club teams in South Africa don’t know what we’re thinking and feeling, we don’t have a connection with them anymore.”
“We travel around the country, especially those of us who are frequent and attend matches all over, as far as possible, yet there are no club representatives who care to find out how we’ve travelled, nor does anyone show any concerns about our safety, but they expect us to turn up, wherever our teams play.”
“Players are not close with the fans as it was in the past. Club officials have this tendency of preventing us from having close contact or a relationship with our players.”
” Unlike Chiefs, Sundown’s reward their fans sometimes, taking a few with them when they charter a plane to go play matches in other African countries, and in the past they even took some of their most loyal fans to the FIFA Club World Cup. Whilst those of us loyal to our clubs find that nothing like or even similar to that gets done for us. Imagine how the so called ‘ordinary’ fans of our teams get treated, and how they must feel?”
“Clubs don’t give us full value for money, why not allow the teams from the junior structures, for example U-23, U-17 and U-15 sides to play on the same day, and we could have double headers or curtain raisers before matches. Many supporters don’t mind coming early and spending even the whole day at the stadium, if the clubs could do this to give them value to the supporters for their money.”
Mama Fefe also points out that another example of local clubs being greedy, although this doesn’t really directly affect match attendance, is the ridiculous pricing of replica jerseys. It puts off a lot of fans who like to go to the stadiums in full regalia.
