He has been dubbed 'The Dog That Bites' by Pitso Mosimane for the relentless nature in which he does his job – but there is more to Mmasekepe Matsebane than meets the eye. His passion for changing the lives of youngsters, not only in his home village of Moletji in Limpopo, but in Johannesburg, is awe-inspiring to say the least.
In addition to being a sports journalist with Power FM, a lecturer, a writer and a law student, Matsebane also runs his own football team United Warriors, an amateur club that in their two years of existence, have already played friendly matches against some of the country's biggest DStv Premiership clubs in SuperSport United, Swallows FC and the University of Pretoria in an effort to give players from his hometown exposure at the highest level.
"I first started with the soccer team United Warriors in 2021. I coached a village team but because there were issues, I left to start my own team. In the first year, we played against the Swallows DStv Diski team and the following day we played against Platinum City Rovers who had the likes of Oupa Manyisa and Auguston Leonard," he told the Siya crew.
The friendly matches were not in vain as two players managed to land themselves trials at professional clubs. Lesego 'German' Phoko, Lesego 'Bakayoko' Lephalala, Thabiso 'Viera' Manamela, were all invited for trials at Swallows, while Moyahabo 'Giggs' Sethlakgwe had a trial with SuperSport United.
"I wanted to give these boys a hope of making it professionally and giving them opportunities through football, but I also started mentorship and tutoring programmes, where the boys received help with their schoolwork as we did not want it to be all about football. There are others who are not inclined to football, and we wanted to give them an opportunity," he said.
This led to the opening of Karabi Tennis Club, which started with 15 tennis rackets, 200 balls and utilized the unused facilities of school. Sport was not the only avenue explored by Matsebane. Through the Mmasekepe Matsebane Foundation, he opened the Moletji debate group to cater to youngsters with different interests.
"I told the principal of the school that I would like to teach anyone interested in debating. The interest is growing, they have books to read. The goal over time is to get more kids coming to play football and tennis – who knows, maybe we can produce professional football and tennis players and even the kids in the debate teams could go on to be lawyers or doctors, which will not only benefit the community, but eventually the country."
He beams with pride when he speaks about the success stories that have emerged through his initiatives as he continues to change the lives of young people both in sport and academia.
"A lot of kids are now aware of this thing and are starting to take football seriously. We've got kids who are going to varsity. We have one at UJ doing chemical engineering, others qualified last year. The captain of our team is a qualified teacher and we've got a goalkeeper at the police academy.
"That's what we are doing, academia coupled with sports, to see if we can help as many kids as we can," he said.
