Mamelodi Sundowns owner and Caf president Patrice Motsepe may not have been involved in the establishment of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) or the professionalisation of South African football. But those who had the opportunity to serve under the astute mining magnate’s stewardship will tell you how he revolutionised, modernised and elevated the game to dizzying heights.
When Motsepe took control of the club by buying it from the Tsichlas family in 2004, he didn’t just harbour a dream of making Sundowns a force to be reckoned with in South Africa, Africa and the world at large.
He also wanted to change how players were paid in South Africa. It’s a known fact that back in the day, local players had to go overseas to earn decent salaries.
But when Motsepe came in and started to shake the industry by paying competitive salaries to those from some European clubs, and forced other South African club owners to follow suit or miss out on top talent.
One of Motsepe’s earliest spending flexes was when he bought Josta Dladla from Denmark’s top-tier outfit AGF Aarhus in 2004.
The retired former Kaizer Chiefs and Bafana Bafana star, Dladla, confirmed that he had been paid around R70 000 by the Danish side at the time when he spoke to the George Mokoena Show.
That was a big jump from his R8,000 salary at Wits University, where he signed his first professional contract.
In the show, Dladla admitted coming home after two seasons abroad was not the greatest decision to take in hindsight.
But being young, homesick, tough weather conditions, being bored and depressed in a foreign country made things a little bit difficult.
“If any kid were in the situation that I was in, choosing to come back home, first you have to understand that Sundowns bought my contract. I still had a season left in my contract,” Dladla said.
“They found me in a space where I was homesick.
“But if I had to reverse the situation. If I had a mentor or an agent who said, ‘You are missing home, go home for two months or go home for a month,’ I wouldn’t have taken that decision to come back. I wish I had stayed.
“But because I had nobody to advise me on the decision that I made when I accepted the Sundowns offer,” he said.
“I thought it was the right thing, but after my second week at Sundowns, I asked myself, ‘What did I just do?’ But I had already signed the contract and had to make it work, which changed everything.”
But knowing he was still going to earn a very good salary and play for a club that had ambitions to be the best made things bearable for Dladla.
“I get into a situation where you have an owner (Motsepe) that just bought a club from the Tsichlas family, and this guy had the vision to make Sundowns the best in Africa. He wanted Sundowns to be like Real Madrid or Barcelona,” Dladla said.
“He wanted to change the way people look at how South African players are being paid. Because when he took over, South African players were still being paid small salaries. He came and took it to another level, and the people who have been running the game called him out and were like, ‘What are you doing? Why are you paying these players so much?’ He didn’t care.
“He understood that the money that we are going to make in a 10-year career has to last you for the next 70 years,” the former midfielder said.
“With no disrespect to the ones that started the league, but when I was at Wits, I think the highest paid players were paid R15,000 or R20,000. Now, Mr Motsepe comes in and gives people R200,000.
“Now, you still have players at certain big teams paying players R25,000, which was okay because they were getting R5,000 from where they came from. It’s a big jump, but it’s still not a lot of money.
“He spoiled us. You know we travelled the world. He was hands-on, and he wanted the best for us. We travelled in private jets,” Dladla recalled.
“That guy even wanted us to drive the best cars. He used to shout at Surprise for driving a Toyota Conquest.
“He would ask who the owner of that car is, and we would respond that it belongs to Surprise (Moriri).
“He would shout, ‘Surprise, I’m paying you a lot of money to drive such a car’ he (Moriri) ended up buying an Audi A3, but the Conquest was still there.
“He would remind us he is paying us a lot of money, so we must buy houses.
“This guy used to pay us so many bonuses that sometimes we didn’t even touch our salaries. We were spoiled, we were in camp, but it was like we were at home.”
Dladla won two league titles and a couple of other trophies with Sundowns before leaving them for rivals Chiefs in 2009.
With Amakhosi, he went on to win two more league titles and other domestic trophies.
