Following their promotion from the second tier of SA football to the Premiership, Kruger United are now guaranteed R30m over 12 months — one of the perks of being in the elite league.
Why is that? It’s because the PSL grants all 16 Premiership teams R2.5m every month, while second-tier outfits only pocket R750,000 allowances — just R9m a year.
Kruger will also get an opportunity to fight for Carling Knockout’s R6.85m prize, where being eliminated in the first round pays R550,000.
The runners-up take home R2.85m, semifinalists get R1.35m, and quarterfinalists earn R850,000. This competition also rewards the man of the match with a whopping R100,000, and that should motivate Kruger players as well.
Magesi managed to win the Carling Knockout as a newly promoted side in the 2024/25 season under coach Clinton Larsen, upsetting rampaging Mamelodi Sundowns 2-1 in the final in Bloemfontein. This should serve as a motivation for the Village Boys that anything is possible in football.
Kruger have already confirmed that they’ll stick with the coach who promoted them, Abram Mongoya. This could help a great deal as far as continuity is concerned, but history tells us that keeping a coach after gaining promotion without recruiting smartly is like pouring water into a bucket with holes.
Cape Town Spurs are a good example of this; after earning promotion in the 2023/24 season, they kept coach Shaun Bartlett but failed to sign suitable players, relying heavily on the promotion-winning squad. As a result, Spurs were relegated back to the Motsepe Foundation Championship.
Orbit College, who were promoted last season, are staring relegation in the face in the Premiership this season because despite keeping Pogiso Makhoye, the coach who earned them top-flight status, they weren’t smart in the market, opting to keep the bulk of the promotion-winning squad until they later realised the ship was sinking.
Left with no choice, Orbit later resorted to signing ageing yet experienced free agents in an attempt to rescue their status. They remain in the relegation zone.
Sowetan
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