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If the broadcasting regulator’s proposed changes to regulations are realised they would have dire consequences for the country’s football bodies.
The Premier Soccer League (PSL) on Tuesday joined the SA Football Association (Safa) in voicing its concerns about the new regulations on sports broadcasting being proposed by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa).
The new rules, if adopted, could cut off what has been the PSL and Safa’s major income stream.
PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza went painting a bleak future for the league, saying the professional club body will shut down as the move “will cripple our revenue by 80% and clubs will have to strip their staff to the bone”.
Icasa published draft regulations in the Government Gazette in December, proposing rules aimed at making key sporting events free to viewers – and “to strike a balance between audience and revenue”.
Prominent local sports bodies, including rugby, are opposing to this and Khoza said they gone as far approaching political parties to state their case.
Addressing the media on the back of the PSL board of governors in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, on Tuesday, Khoza warned that the club football controlling structure would defend itself vigorously.
“We didn’t breach or ignore the law [but] Icasa, with a stroke of pen, want to regulate and take away our [broadcasting] rights,” said Khoza at a gathering that also saw Mamelodi Sundowns president and mining mogul Patrice Motsepe make a rare appearance at a board of governors meeting.
“We see a bleak future… we are not BEE but self-made people,” added the Orlando Pirates boss.
The PSL has enjoyed a multibillion-rand broadcasting rights deal with SuperSport since 2007, a contract that they renewed in 2017 for another five years.
Khoza maintained that it was such deals that had kept the PSL going in the running of all its properties that include the Absa Premiership, the National First Division and all the way down to the reserve league (the Multichoice Diski Challenge).
“What would players earn today without the support of our broadcast partners?” he asked.
Khoza said that Icasa’s proposed regulations would have adverse effects on the club’s monthly grants across the top and second-tier leagues.
Meanwhile, Safa also voiced similar concerns on Icasa’s proposed move, with the federation’s acting chief executive Russell Paul telling City Press that this would complicate matters because Safa was still trying to tie down a new broadcast partner after their contract with the SABC lapsed in April last year.
“Matters are starting to be complicated if you consider the new Icasa regulations they are trying to impose on federations and broadcasters,” Paul said.
“We will be joining other sports federations around this matter to be able to table a better deal for sport in general.
“One of the things we have indicated to Icasa is that they just don’t seem to have a handle on what it takes in terms of numbers of hours of broadcast and trying to put that into a public broadcaster.
“If you consider how many times there is rugby, soccer and cricket all being played at the same time. Our current free-to-air broadcasters do not have the capacity to do that simultaneously.”
Stakeholders were initially given a February 4 deadline to comment on the concept regulations but an extension of March 15 had been granted.
