So, Andile Mpisane played another game of football.
Imagine giving your all as a professional football player. Every day you wake up early, go to training, where you spend hours honing your trade. And when the weekend comes, you take to the field to test your skill against others who know what it takes to get there.
And, when you get that opportunity to play in the top division, you can look back with pride at the journey you took to get there. It’s an honour not many get to experience. Many train for years, but for some reason, never quite make it to the top.
Then you get someone like Mpisane. A rich kid, failed DJ, and wannabe rapper whose mother decided to gift him a football club for his 19th birthday. He has a number of top flight appearances to his name while he is also the club chairperson.
Ridiculous
On Saturday afternoon, in the opening game of the new Betway Premiership season, the young Mpisane found himself on the starting line-up for his club Royal AM’s first game of the league season against Cape Town City. Can you imagine what must have been going through the minds of his teammates when the starting line-up was announced?
They probably weren’t happy. That much was evident during the game as they refused to pass him the ball when he was in space. They effectively started the game with 10 men. Cape Town City took the lead, but once Mpisane was off the park, the home side pulled a goal back and the game ended in a 1-all draw.
When Nasreddine Nabi took charge of Kaizer Chiefs, one of the things he kept on speaking about was the quality of the Betway Premiership. Nabi saw it as one of the best on the continent, if not the best. If this was really the case, then how could the powers that be just sit back and watch Royal AM making a mockery out of the league?
Earlier this year, Ernst Middendorp, head coach of the recently relegated Cape Town Spurs, called Mpisane’s continued appearances for the club his mother owns “embarrassing” and a “comedy”.
“It’s embarrassing for coaching what I have seen,” Middendorp told the media when speaking about Mpisane’s appearance for Royal AM in January.
“Guys, I feel really embarrassed myself as a coach and then you sit there and say because he was so fit, because he was so good in training sessions, he deserves to play.
“We have a portfolio of challenges, we have problems here but what’s going on in the league ... it’s a roller coaster of a comic.”
The German Middendorp wasn’t wrong. Mpisane’s appearance in the top flight of South African football does not send out a good message, and the PSL should put measures in place to ensure it does not continue. Something like this, where the son of an owner gets game time whenever he feels, cannot be allowed to happen.
While Royal AM are currently under a transfer ban, the club does not have a shortage of players on their books. During the game, apart from the 11 players on the field, they still had nine on the bench.
There is no reason for playing this failed DJ, other than to make the club owner happy.
IOL Sport
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