CSI. It’s time our soccer understood what this stands for

I was quite impressed to learn that Aaron Mokoena, the South African international who plays for Blackburn Rovers in the English Premiership, has decided to give back to his local community of Sedibeng, the place he grew up. He just recently launched the Aaron Mokoena Foundation that aims to uplift disadvantaged kids from his community so that they can hopefully emulate his success.

The Foundation aims to create and sponsor a local soccer league for the kids to help keep them off the street whilst enhancing their wellness with the possibility of one or two of the very exceptional ones possibly getting a break into a potential professional soccer career.

The thing is most of the local soccer clubs do go to children’s homes occassionally and hand out gifts or whatever but nothing is real strategy behind it besides scoring a few quick publicity points. Clubs have to to start corporate social investment (CSI) programmes in order to meaningfully give back to the communities that support them because by uplifting their communities they ultimately uplift themselves as well.

Rather than just sporadically going to orphanages and prisons and handing out gifts and soccer goals they should device more formalised and long-term projects that will ultimately raise the standard of living of the targeted beneficiaries. Clubs have got to create Foundations that are dedicated to CSI in a strategic and structured way.

This way it will also be easier for the club’s sponsors to also invest in these efforts financially and otherwise. Furthermore if word gets around of a meaningful initiative that a club’s Foundation is undertaking it is easier for other corporates to co-sponsor initiatives that have synergy.

All the major clubs in South Africa have got the means to do this. Bloemfontein Celtics are already heavily involved in their community and a Foundation would add a lot of value to their initiatives and be sustainable in the long run. We all know that soccer fans include a large majority of the poorest of the poor and soccer-corporates must invest in the upliftment of these societies. Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs are known as the Soweto giants but what footprint or legacy have they left in Soweto.

Clubs must understand that you can’t just take all the time – you must also give back to society meaningfully and formally. The same applies for megastars such as Lucas Radebe and Benni McCarthy. They should follow the example of Aaron Mokoena and leave a legacy so that they become more than just footballers. I can’t wait for the day when no one in soccer needs no explanation of what CSI stands for.