There is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to get good returns by investing in talented soccer players in South Africa, the rest of Africa, and globally, without being either an agent or a soccer player. There are no precedents of this type of investment in South Africa but there definitely are in South America. Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, the Argentine Internationals, sold their sporting rights to an Iranian third party who was neither an agent or soccer club.

This third party then hired out Carlos Tevez’s rights to the Corinthians Club of Sao Paolo for a sizeable fee. The move was highly successful as Tevez inspired the Sao Paolo club to victory in the Brazilian League Championship. After that the two players were both loaned out to West Ham United of the English Premiership, again for a lucrative fee.

The duo managed to save West Ham from relegation with Carlos Tevez scoring the goal that gave them the crucial victory on the last matchday. The company that owns the two players sporting rights then sold Mascherano outright to Liverpool FC for a GBP18 million and loaned Carlos Tevez to Manchester United for an undisclosed, but assumable lucrative fee.

This loan spell ended at the end of the 2008-2009 Premiership season and Carlos Tevez turned down a permanent move to the club citing unfair treatment by Sir Alex Ferguson, the Man U boss, over the course of the season. Carlos Tevez is currently in the process of inking a GBP25 million move to Manchester City.

This is a substantial amount of money by any standards. This type of investment seems to be prevalent in South America with Barcelona being linked to the signing of the promising Brazilian youngster Keirison whose sporting rights are also owned by a third party group and who was on loan to a major Brazilian soccer club. The point is that there is a gap in the market in South Africa for this type of investment.

Basically an entity can invest in young players of immense potential without having the overheads associated with owning a club. The arrangement goes one better than being an agent, because owning the sporting rights of a player means that you pocket the whole transfer fee that would otherwise go to the club. Jomo Sono could definitely do with competition in this regard.

With the World Cup taking place in South Africa, a lot of focus will be on Africa and this could be a viable launchpad for this type of enterprise. The exposure that Bafana Bafana players got from participating in the just ended Confederations Cup, for instance, has led to players such as Bernard Parker and Kagiso Digkacoi arousing serious interest from overseas clubs – there is talk of an R11 million move for one of these players.

This just goes to show that investing in quality soccer players is very lucrative. The business model in its basic form involves firstly, identifying a player of great potential. Then buying the sporting rights of that player by giving the player a signing on fee – that is if they are not tied to a professional contract. Then agreeing a decent wage rate with the player which will be paid by the investor to the player.

The business risk is making sure that the investor is able to hire out the signed-player to a club at a rate higher than the wages paid to the player. Or alternatively, selling the player’s sporting rights outright for a handsome profit. This type of investment is well worth considering if you are an entrepreneur who wants a share of the substantial transfer fees that are the norm in today’s soccer. So if you do invest, invest wisely – don’t put your money into a Jabu Mahlangu (Pule) or the like.

About the author

Lennox Nhando wrote 61 articles on this blog.

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