Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman Dr Irvin Khoza paid tribute to MultiChoice for the support they provided to the league over the years as the league unveiled a new title sponsor on Wednesday.
Betway was unveiled as the new league sponsor on a three-year deal valued at over R900 million. The national competition will now be known as the Betway Premiership. The start date for local football is set for 3 August with the MTN8.
“There was a lot of interpretation as to why the league is not starting. In my business, for the all the years that I have been involved, I told my members that we are in the business of creating content. “Sitting here as the chairman of this league, I am not surprised when they say we are one of the top 20 leagues in the world. Because we know the importance of the fixture, a fixture is important for planning and to advance the purpose intended for."
“When we invite sponsors, we invite them because we are saying we have the audience, we have the platform of go-to transaction volumes, which we call the customers. Therefore, it’s very important that when we take out information, we fragment the messaging and not discounting that impact that we are known for as the PSL."
The PSL chairman referenced a situation in the Egyptian Premier League where the 2022 season ended in July and the current season would end in August.
That as the league was playing catch-up to accommodate Al Ahly, who had a long season.
Dr Khoza said in plotting out the season’s fixtures, the league considered all the factors - clubs playing in the continental football as well as the international dates.
“We all know that the season was abnormal last season. Abnormal in the sense that there was the Afcon and we had to switch out the dates. We also had to accommodate the bronze medalists and we had to change about eight games."
“As we speak, Sundowns had played about 58 games the whole season, Pirates played 45 and SuperSport played 43 games and Stellenbosch 41 games. It’s a killer but also those players who went to the national teams, it was extra games for them."
“Talking about MultiChoice or SuperSport, it’s quite remarkable when you read in the media all the stories. This is one corporate citizen that I have high regard for. During Covid when we were in trouble and the media was writing that how can the PSL go into a bubble people are going to die there. But later some of them were later saying they were going to lose their jobs!
“The important point I want to highlight is that our sponsor, our partner never asked for a refund for non-fulfillment of what we had promised, which was force majeure. They said we understand, count on us. I want to thank MultiChoice for that because that’s what partnerships are all about.
“Today we have a channel 202 (on DStv), that’s unheard of. Anything that we want to produce, promote and project, we have a channel for that. That channel is for content that is qualitative because our market is very sensitive, very fastidious. So, we make sure that what we provide on that channel is a matter of content that is comparable.
On the question of the sponsorship ending a year before schedule, the chairman said there were no issues there.
“It is a privileged experience to have a corporate partner as unique as MultiChoice. When we went to them with the idea of Diski Challenge even my members did not understand what we were talking about. That is why I respect the CEO (Marc Jury) sitting here because we went there with a plan and they agreed. This one is a pet project of MultiChoice, and they are here to stay,” said Dr Khoza.
The Betway Premiership schedule is set for 14 September. Prize money and the trophy will be revealed at a later stage.