EDITORIAL | Thank you Sundowns for leading SA football revival, World Cup shot in the arm

Mamelodi Sundowns have for just over a decade led the revival in South African football.

Now, with their 2025-26 Caf Champions League success and second title in Africa’s premier interclub competition, the heroes of Downs’ present squad, who make up the core of Bafana Bafana, have given South African football another shot in the arm. And it comes less than three weeks before our national team opens the 2026 FIFA World Cup against co-hosts Mexico in Mexico City on June 11.

The Tshwane billionaires have the resources, by comparable measure at South African and African standard, of a Manchester City or Paris St Germain. Their detractors like to say they have bought their success through the Motsepe family’s wallet. But that unnecessarily detracts from the standards of excellence they have set.

And it’s not just about buying the best players. Yes, perhaps for a club of their stature their facility at Chloorkop has been more of a start than an end, and still needs some major upgrading.

The process started by Pitso Mosimane in the mid-2000s of isolating the playing department from an at times chaotic administration and board-room resulted in Sundowns’ first Caf Champions League success in 2016, when they beat Egypt’s Zamalek in the final.

And the process of upgrading the infrastructure surrounding the first team has continued.

Sporting director Flemming Berg has made some controversial decisions, not least those that led to his fallout with immensely popular coach Rulani Mokwena. But he has an excellent CV, including previously serving as head of elite football development for the Danish FA. Such ambition in appointments, mirrored in their player power through big signings in every transfer window and a scouting network that goes deep into Africa, South America and Europe to attract genuinely quality performers locally and internationally, is what brings Downs success here and beyond this country’s borders.

As Patrice Motsepe stood aside as club president to serve his two terms as Confederation of African Football president, son Tlhopie has shown himself as having things to learn, but also suave, educated and perhaps the brightest administrative talent in South African football by far.

If Chiefs and Pirates keep closing the gap, South African football can soar.

As Downs have bashed down the door trying to add a second star to their badge in the Champions League, reaching the knockouts year after year since 2016, the last four semifinals and last two finals, they have shown the way for long-ailing South African football.

Their 2016 victory was the first by a South African club since Orlando Pirates lifted the trophy of the Champions League’s predecessor in the 1995 African Cup of Champions Clubs. South African clubs, often inward-looking as a result of years of sporting isolation, had too often shied from the effort and cost of competing well continentally.

Sundowns have led the way showing that building a squad for the higher level of tough Caf interclub football results in success domestically, as the Brazilians galloped to an unheard-of eight successive Betway Premiership titles before finally ceding the latest to Orlando Pirates, another team that has used competing internationally, though less successfully than Downs have, as the tool to building success.

In doing so, Downs brought in excellent coaches like Mosimane, Mokwena, Manqoba Mngqithi and now 53-year-old Portuguese Miguel Cardoso and an almost international standard of analysts, dieticians, fitness trainers and backroom boffins. This ensures that when the club signed the best talent in the country, they gave them an environment to take their game to the next level.

The culture of discipline ― not always a strength at South African clubs, and often a major issue ― at Chloorkop has also set standards and an example for how relentless football success is won.

As Downs have forged ahead, others have either been left behind ― Kaizer Chiefs took 10 years to finally lift a trophy again last season, and this campaign were finally competitive again in the league to finish third, after some woeful past campaigns ― or worked hard to play catch-up, as Pirates have.

If Chiefs and Pirates keep closing the gap, South African football can soar.

All good news for Bafana coach Hugo Broos as he prepares for the World Cup. Talent is emerging and well groomed. This is what the country’s football has cried out for.