From 10 wasted years to self-sustainability: Mkhize on SAFA eThekwini’s turnaround

SAFA eThekwini is a modern football region that is also fully self-sustainable, something that is rare amongst the SAFA regions, which rely mainly on grants from the national office. It has not always been smooth sailing for this region, for 10 years, they were under administration due to leadership squabbles. There were two factions, one led by Mkhize and the other by Alpha Mchunu. But Mkhize is happy they managed to overcome that.

"We told ourselves, you know in history, we had the 10-year war, 10 wasted years here in Durban fighting. I was part of that problem. But also, I'm a part of the solution at that particular time. We told ourselves when we came back in 2021, guys, we wasted a lot of time, let us try and move fast so that those who had never had the problem, we have to catch up with them. So it's in the grip, we overdid it. We overdid it because we moved miles ahead, even ahead of those regions that had never had a problem of distrubances," said Mkhize

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At a time when most SAFA regions are complaining about the lack of grants and how that funding is not enough to run their programmes, SAFA eThekwini, who have 22 Local Football Associations LFA’s) to look after, doesn’t have those challenges. Mkhize lists some of the sponsors that they have and how they have been able to retain them.

Today, SAFA eThekwini boasts an array of sponsors, with some contributing over a million rand to the region’s coffers. Last week, the region held the U19 schools tournament finals, which was won by Vuyiswa Mtolo High School from KwaMashu. Mkhize says this is just one of the two school football tournaments they are running jointly with the government.

Mkhize, who was recently elected to the SAFA National Executive Committee (NEC) at the recent national elections, also revealed that they are enjoying some good support from the eThekwini Metro, and occupy offices and facilities where they don’t even pay the rent.