AFRICA ALONE

Castle PSL vs ABSA Premiership:

By Mxolisi Mbekezeli :The Zimbabwean Newspaper. A few weeks ago, Zimbabweans went to town celebrating that the local Castle Premiership had been adjudged to be better than South Africa’s ABSA Premiership
Their source was an International Federation of Football History and Statistics, a German-based organisation that considers the history and records of national football associations. The IFFHS bases its rankings on all national championships, cup competitions and inter-continental club competitions to produce its not-so-flawless list of the Club World rankings.
While the idealists celebrated that the IFFHS put the Castle PSL 14 places above the South African league, realists did not ignore the facts that punched many holes in the organisation’s theories. Obviously, a system that puts America’s strong Major Soccer League behind the national leagues from Angola, Botswana, Armenia, and India, should not be trusted.
Those who still based their celebrations on the IFFHS statistics also ignored the fact that the same organisation put the ABSA Premiership (51st) 21 places above the Zimbabwean league on its list of the strongest Leagues of the 21st Century.
To be fair, Zimbabwean clubs have of late done better in continental competitions than their South African counterparts, but that is more attributable to the fact that the business-minded South African clubs have seen it better to cut their losses than chase tournaments with less reward than their domestic competitions.
The winners’ prize for the CAF Champions League translates to less than R9.5 million and put against the high costs of travel and hosting away clubs, the net amount can be less than half that figure – R4.75million.
That could be a fortune for Zimbabwean clubs, but remains peanuts to super-rich South African clubs with mega millions in their bank accounts.https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5264094769357163987#editor/target=post;postID=1901655342362056464