Kaizer Motaung has just appointed the Serb Vladimir Vermezovic as Head Coach of Kaizer Chiefs. He had vowed to look overseas after declaring that the only two local coaches with the nous to handle his club were both unavailable. There’s nothing wrong with this since an injection of new blood might be good for our soccer. What is disturbing however is that it possibly perpetuates a very strange phenomenon that is unique to South African and African football in general.
This is the fact that coaches in South Africa have tended to earn much more than the players who are the clubs’ most valuable assets. In Europe the top coaches like Sir Alex Ferguson earn about the same as their top players but are not the highest earning member of the team. The top stars like Rio Ferdinand and Cristiano Ronaldo earn more. Carlo Ancelotti of AC Milan does not earn anywhere near the sort of money that Kaka earns. At Chelsea Guus Hiddink definitely doesn’t earn anywhere near the amount that the likes of Frank Lampard and John Terry earn. I could go on and on.
But things don’t work like that here. At about R760 000 per month Henri Michel was earning money that no player at Mamelodi Sundowns FC can even dream of earning at this time. He was earning more than 3 times Sibusiso Zuma’s reported salary of R200 000 per month which is a record amount for local soccer.
I do not know how much Orlando Pirates are paying former Dutch great Rudi Kroll but I can bet my life that he earns far more than any player. No doubt he brings with him innovations and coaching methodologies our local coaches don’t have but it doesn’t seem right that a coach should earn more than the club’s most valuable assets, the players. The same probably applies with Chiefs new coach.
The problem is that a coach cannot be transferred for big money to another club the way players can. Yes, it is true that some local coaches don’t earn as much as the Krolls of this world but they still tend to earn more than the players at their clubs.
Coaches like Gordon Ingesund of Maritzburg United and Clive Barker of Amazulu all probably earn a lot more than the top players at their clubs. Clubs only seem to value their players when they sell them for huge profits. This strange phenomenon must change. Players should be the stars of the show and therefore should steal the show as far as pay is concerned too.
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May 20, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Interesting post Lenox. I think the reason for this may have to do with the fact that our PSL players aren’t really “stars” like overseas based players. How many local players have endorsments with Nike or Adidas? I think Teko Modise is the only player that springs to mind(McDonalds).
I don’t think our local players perform at the same level. Look how rare it is to find a 20 goal a season striker in the PSL. Look how few of them go overseas to big European clubs. They have not done much imo to earn those kind of salaries that Michel was earning. What has Zuma even done at Sundowns to take home R200k a month?