Banyana Banyana sponsors Sasol have confirmed that its sponsorship agreement with the South African Football Association (SAFA), which included support for the senior women’s national team as well as the semi-professional Sasol League, has come to an end.
The 16-year partnership officially ended at midnight on the 30th of June and is potentially a crippling blow to women’s football in the country.
Sasol says it’s awaiting feedback from SAFA regarding the terms of a potential renewal but until an agreement is reached, they no longer hold the rights to associate with Banyana Banyana and the Sasol League. Sasol did not want to confirm or deny whether there are any conditions attached to them agreeing to a deal.
The petroleum company has been synonymous with women’s football in South Africa for almost two decades. And the journey Banyana Banyana and Sasol embarked on in 2009 has been a long and productive one.
Banyana played in two FIFA World Cup tournaments and two Olympic Games in the 16 years. Banyana were also crowned Women’s Africa Cup of Nations champions in 2022 for the first time after 13 attempts.
But the sponsorship did not only focus on women’s national team. It included the Sasol League and led to the growth and increased visibility of women’s football in South Africa.
The fact that the contract has not been renewed, will come as a major blow to SAFA. According to SAFA’s chief executive, Lydia Monyepao, the two senior national teams were the only two sides that were able to generate some income for the cash-strapped association.
“The majority of our national teams, especially junior national teams are not sponsored, they are not funded, we do not get money anywhere to fund their programmes but if you look in the previous months in terms of where they have been and how they have been performing, it shows that we’ve been investing in these teams. Where does the money come from one has to wonder, so we’ve been digging very deep in our pockets to ensure that our under-17 girls, our under-17 boys are participating in various tournaments at Cosafa level,” says Monyepao.
The Sasol sponsorship was worth in the region of R30 million per year. About R16 million went to Banyana and the rest to the Sasol Women’s League. The chairperson of SAFA’s Finance Committee, Mxolisi Sibam, says they’ll have to revisit their funding models for national teams in order to survive.
“So, we are at a point now where these teams are the ones that are our revenue generators for us to be able to have sufficient revenue to be able to compensate them, to re-invest in the junior national team, to re-invest in our competitions and governance that the formula that we’ve been using is not working. Then if we look to the successful federations in Europe and elsewhere in Africa is that they use a simple formula that whatever percentage of winnings that come goes to the team then, the teams are paid their daily allowances. This is something that we are putting forward as a proposal going forward to the federation,” says Sibam.
Several other SAFA sponsorships are set to expire this year. The five year contract with Showmax for referees also expired on the 30th of June, while the Hollywoodbets sponsorship for the regional league, the fourth tier of domestic football in South African, comes to an end at the end of this month.
SAFA’s contract with apparel supplier, Le Coq Sportif, is up for renewal at the end of the year.
Video: SAFA-SASOL 16-year partnership ends
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