14 August 2018 – With over 120,000 players registered a mere 12 months after nationwide release, the South African Football Association (SAFA) football player registration and competition system, MYSAFA is a runaway hit throughout the association.

In recognition, SAFA Digital have announced the SAFA Provinces, Regions and Local Football Associations leading the way with the most player registrations during the 2017/18 season.

“The past year has been defining for SAFA’s cornerstone software initiative” says SAFA CEO, Dennis Mumble. “MYSAFA has proven itself to be a giant step forward to identifying, tracking and nurturing football talent around South Africa. This will start benefiting our national teams soon, and the impact will be long-lived”.

He went on to commend the top-performing structures on their willingness to support change and innovation.

“The structures who have adopted our centralised registration system are proving to football players and fans that they take transparency, fair play and professionalism seriously,” added the CEO.

The prominence of Limpopo in the tallies may come as a surprise but not to followers of amateur football in SA’s fifth largest province by population. SAFA Vhembe is a SAB League hotspot with nearly 5,000 players participating in 10 streams.

Samuel Matodzi, league administrator in Vhembe, was an early adopter and strong supporter of the MYSAFA system.

“It’s helped out immensely,” said Matodzi. “This season we will add two more LFAs from Vhembe and fully expect to be the top region in 2019.”

Limpopo Provincial Secretary, Patrick Seema, agrees.

“The program has been a huge asset,” enthused Seema. “Take our SAB League provincial playoffs as an example. With the aid of MYSAFA, we found many players trying to cheat who were not properly registered during the window periods. If we did not have a national player database we would not have caught these cheaters.”

Seema still sees room for improvement though.

“We are proud of what we have accomplished in Limpopo but I fully expect to move from position three to number one next year. We will press our remaining regions and LFAs will to adopt and MYSAFA for all their leagues.”

SAFA Digital would like to congratulate all our top threes. We too expect to reach even greater heights in 2019.

Structures with the most registrations from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018:

Province

  1. KwaZulu Natal – 30,707 Registrations
  2. Eastern Cape – 18,212 Registrations
  3. Limpopo – 17,724 Registrations

Region

  1. SAFA Nelson Mandela (EC) – 13,507 Registrations
  2. SAFA Ethekwini (KZN) – 12,209 Registrations
  3. SAFA Vhembe (LP) – 10,435 Registrations

LFA

  1. Thulamela (LP) – 6,686 Registrations
  2. Northern Areas Football Association (EC) – 4,458 Registrations
  3. Polokwane (LP) – 3,097 Registrations