South African Football Association CEO, Dennis Mumble has lauded the tremendous progress made by the SAFA ABC Motsepe League in the last three years.
Mumble was speaking at the official launch and draw of the National Play Offs scheduled to take place in East London from 5 – 11 June where two National First Division (NFD) places will be up for the taking.
Mumble credited the success of the ABC Motsepe League to the nationwide programmes operated by the Association which have worked as a talent identification pipeline to the ABC Motsepe League.
“We have noted the significant improvement and extra competitiveness of the league itself which is to a large extent a result of the growth of our regional and provincial structures,” said Mumble.
“We also have a lot of players who are scouted at our Inter-Provincial tournaments that the Association hosts every year, which produce a number of talented players.
“All these put together form that competition structure of Vision 2022, an ambitious programme which is set to change the face of South African football. It is worth noting that we are developing a much broader pool of players at a much higher rate thanks to these structures that we have set up nationwide,” added Mumble.
The SAFA CEO also heaped praise on SAFA’s recent coaching rollout programmes which have dramatically changed the quality of coaching across the various SAFA Leagues, including the ABC Motsepe League.
“In the last three years, we have trained about 15 000 coaches and we can see the results in players being coached better by qualified coaches. This has resulted in the players equipping themselves better on the field of play and being signed by several PSL clubs.”
The focus will be on this weekend’s ABC Motsepe League National Play Offs where the cream of the crop of SAFA ABC Motsepe Leagues will be battling out for NFD honours, the coveted ABC Motsepe League trophy and the R1 Million prize money from the Motsepe Foundation.