Sundowns’ Super League Prospects: Contemplating the Role of Chiefs and Pirates

Mamelodi Sundowns’ participation in the inaugural African Football League (AFL) remains in the balance as they are yet to be endorsed by the PSL. The Brazilians were the only team in the PSL to have been invited by CAF, among the eight, to participate in the AFL, however, the League is reportedly not happy with how their invitation was handled after they received a letter from a third party requesting for Sundowns’ fixtures to be rescheduled.

The PSL had a board of governors meeting last week, where they agreed not to accept for the Brazilians’ fixtures to be rescheduled, as Sundowns’ AFL fixtures clash with the Carling Knockout Cup. Initially, the tournament dubbed the African Super League was supposed to consist of 24 teams, where Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates were set to be involved but the competition was cut down to eight teams for its first season for sponsorship reasons and will have 24 teams in its second season, as originally planned.

Jomo Cosmos owner and decorated South African legend Jomo Sono, who was not part of the BoG meeting after his team was relegated to the ABC Motsepe League, says he would not vote against Sundowns participating in the AFL, as the tournament represents progress in football and argues that fixtures can always be amended.

“I wouldn’t vote against anything that is bringing progress in football. You can definitely rest assured my vote would not be counted (against AFL),” Sono said on Marawa Sports Worldwide. “I’ve read reports that the fixture has been done, blah, blah, blah but it has happened before where the fixture was changed, because a certain team has qualified for this and this, then we change fixtures. We ended up having a (bio) bubble during the off season, it can be done. There’s nothing impossible in football, you can change the fixtures, they must sit down and talk to each other and find a solution. Let Sundowns go and compete,” he said.

SAFA have released a statement backing the advent of the AFL. However, the PSL is yet to publicly comment on the Super League, which gets underway on 20 October. The winners prize money for the tournament was also announced to be $4 million (+-R77 million), $3 million for the runners up and $1,7 million each for the semi-finalist.