Editor's Column - Joe Crann
On Friday we saw the closure of another South African transfer window - a transfer window that once again saw plenty of loans, a pre-contract or two, swaps and free transfers, but not a single confirmed fee for a player. It's becoming a trend now, and a worrying one at that. Ever since I moved to South Africa, there has been a strange feel to the transfer windows. As journalists, we're chasing stories about players moving to this club or that club, yet I don't remember ever hearing an official confirmation of a transfer fee. To be honest, I'm not sure anybody in SA even pays for players anymore. There are hundreds of millions of Rands exchanging hands in South African football, albeit largely amongst an 'elite' group of teams, however for a long time it was only Mamelodi Sundowns that spent money on bringing players in. As much as people took the mickey with regards to the money Sundowns spent, they were the only team actually pushing money back into the market; the only team spreading the wealth by paying hefty transfer fees for players such as Khama Billiat, Keagan Dolly and Cuthbert Malajila. However, with Sundowns now happy with their current setup and cutting costs, they are no longer pushing money into the market… but neither is anybody else. While there were plus sides to Sundowns' spending, they also caused a problem with regards to the valuation of players. By paying a reported fee of around R7m for Eleazar Rodgers after one good season, clubs have now got into the habit of asking R4-5m for very average players, when only a handful of clubs actually have that kind of money to spend. Players have become so overvalued in relation to what 90 percent of the league can afford to spend, that it's got to a point where nobody can – or is willing to – pay for anybody anymore. And, to make it even worse, the clubs that have that money to spend don't usually spend it. Obviously, I must speculate because of course nothing has been confirmed, but it seems like Kaizer Chiefs managed to snap up William Twala for next to nothing by sending two squad players out on loan to Chippa United, leaving Chippa with no long-term benefits from selling one of their key players. Pirates and Chiefs signed a deal with Vodacom back in 2012 that was reportedly worth R500m… EACH. That's R100m a year. And where is that money going? Because it's not been used to bring in any top-class talent of late… Since the 2012/13 season, Kaizer Chiefs have signed 15 players on a permanent basis. We won't officially know fees for any of them, however the bulk were free transfers. Of those 16, how many are regulars under Steve Komphela now? Two? Three? Clubs like Bidvest Wits and SuperSport United have been very savvy on the pre-contract front, bringing in a host of players from all over the place by playing the market, but little, if any, money is changing hands between clubs. While it's good business, they too aren't feeding the market. Add to that the lack of transparency with regards to transfers and there is also no accountability for the clubs. Fans can't complain when money made from transfers isn't spent on benefitting the squad, because it's never actually confirmed how much came in. 'Big' clubs around the world help keep smaller teams in their leagues afloat due to healthy transfer fees here and there, however the Absa Premiership seems to have managed to cut them out altogether. Yes, we do hear the term 'undisclosed fee' far too often around the world these days, but at least we know that people are actually spending something. The poor stay poor, the rich get richer. Clubs with big sponsors expand their coffers without spreading the wealth, not even in return for players who might be worth it. If the rich don't pay the middle class, the middle class can't give to the poor. Come to think about it, we don't actually know what the record fee for a player in South Africa is. We 'think' that Billiat joined Sundowns for R9m from Ajax, however it was never confirmed and Ajax are yet to spend a penny since, so we can only imagine. It's all so incestuous. Just like with coaches, where we see so few fresh faces coming in – especially ones who make a direct impact. With a free transfer here, a swap there, and no real scouting systems in place, the chances of this changing any time soon are incredibly slim. A total of 51 new Absa Premiership players were registered in the January transfer window (that includes new signings, loans, renewed contracts etc.) yet not a single confirmed transfer fee. Not only that, I haven't even seen some of the signings confirmed at all. Why all the secrecy? So as the January transfer window gently closed with little more than a murmur last week, is it safe to say that the South African transfer market has died a death? On the tombstone reads: "Here lies the South African transfer window, died of starvation." Joe Crann Soccer Laduma Journalist
