The Premier Soccer League on Wednesday announced a new R500 million five-year sponsorship of the league with ABSA, the bank who since 2003 until the end of the 2006 – 2007 season sponsored South Africa’s largest domestic cup competition known as the ABSA Cup.

ABSA pulled off a major coup by being able to snap up the sponsorship of the PSL. There were many surprised looks on Wednesday afternoon at a press briefing held in Newtown in the Johannesburg CBD when it was made public that ABSA would be the new main title sponsor of the league.

With their announcement of the league sponsorship, ABSA have withdrawn from their sponsorship of the ABSA Cup. The cup will be renamed as a new sponsor is set to take over from ABSA an announcement will be made next week.

Good for football

Amakhosi chairman Kaizer Motaung was part of the PSL committee who negotiated the new deal for the league and he told kaizerchiefs.com, that the league was showing consistency in its various sponsorship deals. That they had kept their overall focus of becoming one of the strongest leagues in the world in mind during the negotiations with ABSA, as he added “we needed to follow up our recent television deal with a healthy financial package for the league title sponsor. I believe that this deal with ABSA is in keeping in line with the lucrative television deal that the league signed a few months ago, the deals negotiated by the league are done to ensure that both the sponsor and the league gain out of the arrangements”.

Looking ahead

Happy Ntshingila a spokesman for ABSA said, “ABSA are pleased to have been able to have strengthened their already firm relationship with the league, by becoming the main title sponsor of the PSL”. Just as they did with the ABSA Cup the bank is hoping to forge a strong presence in the local domestic game, as Ntshingila went on to add, “The ABSA Cup and its success played a huge role in us deciding on taking over the crown jewel of the domestic game in South Africa”.

Prize Money

Chairman of the PSL Dr. Irvin Khoza did mention that the prize money that will be given to the winners of the 2007 – 2008 PSL season will be far in excess of the R 4.25 million being offered by The Telkom Knock Out Cup, which currently offers the highest prize purse in domestic football for the winner.

Khoza when making reference to the question on prize money said, “the winner of the league this season will earn double plus change to what the winner of the Telkom Cup will receive, that is all the info I can give out at the moment we will make the actual amount they will receive public shortly”.