Plea for fairness is just a smokescreen

Perhaps it’s time to revisit how amateur clubs are compensated when professional sides swoop for their brightest talents, but let's be honest, Cape Town Spurs' recent outcry for fairness is less about principle and more about pride and profit.

- Katlego Modiba

After Advocate Hilton Epstein ruled that academy graduates Asanele Velebayi and Luke Baartman were free agents, Spurs went into overdrive, painting themselves as victims of a broken system.

Now the club says its future youth development will rely on contributions from parents, agents and private sponsors, a move that reeks of elitism masquerading as sustainability rather than innovation.

Let's call it what it is, a shortsighted, exclusionary model that threatens to lock out the very children football was meant to uplift.

The moment you make parents pay for access, you shut the door on thousands of kids from disadvantaged communities who are the lifeblood of South African football.