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 Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 3:20 pm Post subject: Telkom cup:the richest tourney in the history of SA soccer.. |
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PSL, Telkom launch cup competition
Friday August 25 2006
A new era in South African professional football begun in Johannesburg, on Friday August 25, when the Premier Soccer league and Telkom announced what has been confirmed as the 'richest knock-out soccer competition in the histroy of South African football'
Below is PSL Chief Executive Trevor Phillips' speech at the launch of this groundbreaking cup competition.
"I have said on numerous occasions during the past few months, that this season, the 2006/2007 season finishing in May 2007 is a pivotal one for the PSL. In reality, the most important year since its formation. This is the year that will set the benchmarks for the future, in many aspects.
This is the year that will decide the future development of professional football in South Africa for the next two to three decades. If all that sounds dramatic and high blown, I can assure you that it’s a simple, pragmatic, realistic statement of fact.
Throughout its modern history, professional football in South Africa, although always being the number one sport in terms of participation and following. It has lagged far behind certain other sports in terms of relevance, funding from the corporate sector, and infrastructure.
The infrastructure problems are still with us, however the real relevance to the PSL, of the World Cup in 2010, is that it provides the catalyst for improving a woefully inadequate infrastructure, which is currently in many ways holding back the full development potential we are capable of.
As you well know, all our major commercial agreements come up for renewal in the course of the next twelve months. Including the all important television rights agreement. The next twelve months, will, I guarantee you, take care of the funding requirements and put us into a totally different league.
That is why today’s announcement, the real reason why we are here today, is hugely significant, because it heralds the start of that transformation process.
The PSL’s knock-out cup competition contested by the 16 Premier League teams in the first half of every season, has been with us for some time and is a very important and integral part of our football calendar.
That competition will continue this year, kicking off with the first round on Wednesday, 25 October 2006, with a cup final schedule for Saturday, 16 December 2006.
I am very pleased and proud to announce that our new partners in bringing this exciting and very popular competition to the South African soccer public will be Telkom.
The purpose of this announcement today is to bring to an end the speculation, but not to give specific details of the commercial aspects.
There will be an official launch and draw for the first round on 9 October 2006, where we will announce details of the prize money, etc.
Today I will confine myself to making just two comments:
It will be the richest tournament in the history of South Africa football, and at the end of the competition the winning team will walk off the pitch with a first prize cheque of not less than R2,5million.
There are new initiatives we are currently considering that will make this already successful competition even more dynamic, but as I said you are going to have to wait until the launch on 9 October 2006 for the full details.
Telkom are already well associated with football through their social responsibility programme, which is the Telkom Charity day.
Now we welcome them as a commercial partner in a relationship that recognises the fact that the synergy between football and the rapidly changing world of telecommunications offers both parties the opportunity to develop a whole host of new commercial ventures and incremental revenue streams in the future."
Trevor Phillips
Chief Executive Officer
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It's time to move on and be part of the rainbow nation,a new SA home for all,for the sake of peace forgive and forget,but never forget your past......
Ikemann |
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