Current CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe has revealed the advice he gave to Mamelodi Sundowns' players during his days as the club's president - and why he aims to ensure African players are paid as well as their European counterparts.
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The mining Magnate was speaking at a press conference in Angola earlier this week, when he was asked what needs to be done to develop African football.
Motsepe highlighted his ideals of ensuring players are well remunerated for their efforts and equally have to make wise decisions with their money so that they are still financially stable once they call time on their careers.
"That's why we have introduced the African Football League. Listen, the Motsepe family has been involved for more than 20 years in football, because we love football and for us it's also a means to give back to the people of South Africa and the people of Africa. And that's partly why we donated $10 million to schools football on the African continent from the Family Foundation. Because we believe that there’s exceptional talent in Africa. If you develop it, we should be able to pay them very good salaries, the players, the coaches, including the employees who are employed by the clubs," he told journalists.
"So, the young Africans go to Europe and go to America, and some even go to South America, because historically they receive more money there. And I've always encouraged players because football is a short career whilst you play, you have to make as much money as possible. And I encourage them to take some of that money and invest it for the future when they don't play football.
"And when I was president of Mamelodi Sundowns, I'd go to where the players train, I see very expensive Mercedes Benz, I see very expensive BMW's, in fact, even Ferrari. And of course, it's fine for them to buy these wonderful things as long as they take some of the money and invest it for the days when they don't play football. Because I've seen many players who were our heroes when they played football, and they've got nothing when the football days are over.
"What we have to do is to show the players that we can pay them very well and compete with some of the European countries. There are some that will get big, big money in the big leagues, which is beautiful because we want them to make as much money as possible. But I can assure you that between 60 and 80% of the players who play outside Africa, we can compete with what they are paid, definitely in the Scandinavian countries. We used to see how much the highest paid players get in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and many other countries, and we could compete and pay our African players more than what they were getting in those countries,” he concluded.
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