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TS Galaxy President Tim Sukazi has reiterated his call for the Premier Soccer League (PSL) to have an independent Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The league’s Acting CEO Mato Madlala is also the owner of Golden Arrows. She has held the (acting) position since replacing Brand De Villiers in 2015.
Sukazi says this is not a healthy situation for the administration of the league as perception matters.
"We cannot have a club owner being the CEO of the league. I want to address the conflict issues around it. People will always be left with no choice but to suspect certain things. When they see certain things happen, they'll point at the CEO, and sometimes you may find that our CEO lady has got nothing to do with it, but because we know CEOs and their levels of control", he claimed.
Madlala, who serves as an elected member of the PSL Executive Committee, has the backing of some club chairmen, including the likes of Baroka Chairman Khurishi Mphahlele. After the league’s AGM in 2020, Mphahlele expressed his support for her to continue in her position.
However, Sukazi argued that allegations of conflict of interest cannot be ignored and recalls a conversation he had with an observant member to illustrate this point.
“Someone came to me and asked: 'do you know that Golden Arrows is the only club that will go to Polokwane in the past three seasons and play two games once and come out? Others will have to go and travel.
“Of course, if you look at the league you realize that in the other year, Arrows went once and they played both games and every season it's like that. I don't know how fixtures are done, but people will put it to the CEO that the CEO gives an advantage to her own club. It may not be true, maybe it's like the lottery", Sukazi said.
Now in her eighth year, Madlala is the longest-serving CEO in PSL history since it was rebranded in the 1996/97 season. The league's first CEO, Trevor Phillips, had two terms between 1996 and 1998 and 2002 to 2007, a total of seven years.
In July 2022, PSL chairman Irvin Khoza hoped to finalize the issue of a permanent CEO before the annual general meeting in November.
“This was an issue with the Board of Governors (BOG) and they gave me an ultimatum to decide whether she (Madlala) divorces herself from the club (Arrows) and she takes the position full-time.
“By the time we go to the AGM in November, I might have an answer for everybody. We will also put the matter to the executive committee to decide whether she can be full-time or not,” said Khoza in July last year.
But Sukazi revealed to SABC Sport that the matter was deferred to the next BOG meeting because it could not be discussed in the AGM.
