Mamelodi Sundowns face a big challenge of playing the Carling Knockout
round of 16 game against TS Galaxy on Wednesday with a depleted squad, but
there are million dollar reasons why they can even afford to rest their
best remaining players.
The Brazilians have seven players away with Bafana Bafana, who will
probably not feature against the Rockets in the Carling Knockout, and
before that, in their MTN8 final clash against Orlando Pirates they had
six players who were ruled out with different injuries.
The incentive of reaching the quarterfinals of the Carling Knockout Cup
pales in comparison to the African Football League (AFL) quarter-final
clash against Petro de Luanda on Saturday, which guarantees Masandawana $1
million (+-R18,8 million) just for participating. Going all the way in the
Carling Knockout for Sundowns won’t compare to the AFL, as the winner will
pocket R6,85 million, which is not even half of what the Brazilians will
get for participating in the African Super League.
The AFL presents a huge opportunity for the Tshwane giants, that no team
had before, as reaching the semi-finals will guarantee them a prize money
of $1,7 million (+- R32 million). Reaching the semi-finals of the African
Football League is almost equivalent, in monetary terms, to winning all
domestic cups and the league in South Africa, which has a total prize
money of R36,85 million (adding all the winner prize monies for the DStv
Premiership, MTN8, Carling Knockout and Nedbank Cup).
Furthermore, Sundowns will be guaranteed to get at least $3 million
(+-R56,5 million) for reaching the AFL final and will get an additional $1
million if they win the cup, which carries a prize money of $4 million
(R75,3 million).
