Another year has passed by, and we observe our shortcomings and failures
with our successes and achievements. I have a dire need in terms of RCLFA
Leadership to guide and achieve more consistency, better compliance,
better individual player growth through our football competition programs
and outstanding football administrators that understand the goals and
objectives of our football association.
As we raise the level of all the facets of our football structures our ultimate
objective needs to have players playing professional football in our National
Teams and Professional Football Clubs. It will be a great achievement for our
LFA to watch a few of our local clubs eventually playing in the professional
football leagues and our coaches managing those teams. Fact, more and
more of our players are ever present in men and women’s professional
football club structures, many have played little, junior, and senior league
football in RCLFA.
My colleagues, the RCLFA Executive Committee have supported the vision of
raising our level unconditionally, our administrative team has complimented
the vision, I have not seen a better fit of individuals who have been thrown
together to navigate sometimes stormy waters and constantly pull together
to provide the best possible football administration for our membership.
It’s premature to plot an accurate pathway or timeline whilst we have
disparities and inconsistencies within our membership, we will strive to align
more member clubs to a core vision, when we work together, we achieve
together. We need to host workshops around football education,
leadership, and administration.
Some clubs have lost their way and others too proud to buy into new
concepts, we will and can as champions of our football competitions,
impose better practices that can dictate growth and raise the levels of all
our football clubs.
Our executive members have grown over the last 2-3 years, excelling under
trying conditions, our key attributes are transparency and upholding the
rules that guide us, we a constituted group who serve a constituted body
Most, if not all clubs currently do not comply with the ardent club
compliance criteria set within the SAFA statutes, we must try achieving
higher compliance from all clubs within the next year. The statues need to
be reviewed, amended to suit the differences of registered football clubs, it
does not cater for football business owners or properly registered PTY (LTD),
PBO and NPO entities. Ultimately these variances must be respected and
acknowledged, The RCLFA and SAFA JHB Statutes are currently our vehicle
and automatically applied to each team, club, and stream in our LFA.
Our executive will unpack an overview of each pillar of our organization,
Finance, Legal & Constitutional, Competitions, Technical, Referee’s and
Woman’s Football Standing Committees. These pillars are active and
functional with good leadership, we have co-opted and welcomed 2
additional executive members late last year, Kevin Mudie and Rob Sinclair,
Kevin Mudie supports the competitions and technical standing committees
whilst Rob Sinclair has been inducted into the vacant treasurer role.
We thank Michael Schroder who served in the referee’s portfolio and created a
good base structure with Clifford Graff our RCLFA’s Referees Convenor.
Michael Schroder stepped down from the RCLFA executive as referee’s
chairman and resigned from the committee. Greg Green stepped in as
interim Referee’s Chairman till recently, we are very pleased to welcome
Sylvania Shepard as our newly appointed executive member and Referee’s
Standing Committee Chairlady.
We will see the return of more select RCLFA teams participating in
competitions like the old district’s tournaments. This will be subject to
invitation, entry, timing, commitment, and all clubs supporting the technical
and competition RCLFA bodies requests for players and coaches.
International youth tournaments are being tabled but will need to have a
strong cost-effective presentation to justify travelling abroad in 2025.
We have more the ever before Marquee tournament’s within RCLFA from
Little League through to some very competitive New Junior League
Tournament’s. To mention a few, Engen Cup U18, Pirates Cup U21, Vision
View U17, Randburg Friendship Cup, Old Parks Youth Tournament, and
several other clubs have hosted Age Specific Little League and Junior
Tournaments.
Arguably RCLFA has hosted the most coaching courses in the last 2 years,
more than any other LFA in the country, as much as we are processing a lot
of CAF D License candidates, our key objective is to either host or
coordinate CAF C & possibly CAF B License courses through SAFA JHB.
My time contributed to RCLFA & SAFA JHB is satisfied when football is
played as it’s meant to be, players learn and grow as it should be, ultimately
looking back on a football season that has progressed and improved our
playing members.
Yours in Football,
Mr. Gordon Naidoo
RCLFA Chairman
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