6 June 2024 – The Club Licensing Online Platform (CLOP) National Workshop ended on a high note on Thursday after three days of in-depth training sessions for users of the platform in Johannesburg.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) and the South African Football Association (SAFA) hosted the event from Tuesday and sides from the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and the Hollywoodbets Super League were in attendance.
SAFA CEO Lydia Monyepao said the Association was happy with what has been achieved this week and added that the workshop was a worthwhile exercise.
“This makes sure that our clubs will be ready for the 2024-2025 season as far as compliance is concerned because from July it will be mandatory for all information like applications is made online, and nothing will be done manually,” she said.
“This was very helpful because we got to show the clubs what is required, conducted the training of the users on what they are going to be responsible for implementing and what is required in terms of the regulatory framework. It has been a worthwhile exercise and I’m happy we did it because how many other countries have done it? There are 23 other countries that have done it, and we were the 24th country, so it means they still have to do 30 other countries. I am glad that we have done this, and we are ready for the 2024-2025 season, especially for our clubs that will be competing in the CAF Champions League, the CAF Confederations Cup and the Women’s Champions League.”
CAF Head of Professional Football, Muhammad F. Sidat, said the objective of the CLOP workshop, which was to provide full training to the clubs on the new club licensing online platform, was achieved. He said the PSL clubs were already well acquainted with some of the projects related to club licensing.
“Further to that, on the third day we had a meeting with the Hollywoodbets Super League teams. Obviously, it’s a different environment and we understand that women’s football across the continent and across the globe is still in a development phase,” he said.
“But when we say development, it does not mean that we have to take women’s football lightly, because from FIFA and CAF there’s special emphasis on the professionalisation, acceleration and growth of women’s football competitions.”
