A New Home For Soccer Laduma

If you missed last week's column, the subject discussed was ownership of stadiums and that football clubs in South Africa have been wholly unable to foster any sort of feeling for their fans of 'home atmosphere' – essentially belonging with or to any particular stadium.   If you cast your mind back to the last time South Africa felt like a 'home' to football it was, certainly in my opinion, the 2010 World Cup. The nation was buzzing. We had built magnificent cathedrals for football to feel at home in. We renovated older stadiums to bring them up to speed with the requirements of modern football, but most of all, beyond the bricks and mortar, there was passion. Communities were buzzing around the stadiums in their regions. There was passion in the air, and passion is the biggest element needed for creating homes for football.   Now many clubs will argue that they can't afford to own stadiums, and unless they own them, why should they invest in them? Why should they make something that is not theirs feel like a home? The simple answer - do it for your fans. Make spiritual football homes for your fans to come and experience football at its best. If every club does this, then attendance figures will rise.   There are huge financial advantages to owning your own stadium. Ownership of stadiums allows clubs to fully exploit commercial opportunities at the stadium, be it retaining all match day income, fully benefiting from advertising or sponsorship money, or developing other event based income streams such as conferences or concerts. Understandably, there is a risk involved, because owning a stadium would require taking on massive debt, and what happens if a club gets relegated and loses all that money that comes in when you are part of the PSL?    According to our research on the subject, less than one in five top division clubs in Europe directly own their stadium. Yes, in England, Spain and Scotland there is club ownership but for the most part, municipal ownership is the order of the day with clubs opting for long term leasing rights. It is not true ownership, but fans know that for the rest of their lifetime, their club will play their home games at the same place, week after week, season after season. In that way the stadium becomes a home. As for what happens if you are relegated? Work around it. Put in clauses that state if you are relegated, you reserve the right to terminate the lease. It may seem a gamble, but I think it's one worth taking and one local municipalities will understand.    So perhaps the answer in South African football is for clubs to start committing to communities by taking on long-term leasing options at stadiums, and then making those stadiums their home. Maybe even partner with clubs in the same region and share a home. In Italy two massive rivals, Inter Milan and AC Milan, share the San Siro which is owned by the Milan Municipality. If PSL clubs continue to look at ways to cut operating costs by simply moving from stadium to stadium for their home games based on what is cheapest and what is available, if they continue to be a circus of travelling hobos pedalling their wares, South African fans will continue to turn their nose up at what is clearly a product rather than a passion.   Talking about new homes, it's exciting to announce the launch of the new home that is Soccer Laduma's web and mobi site. After over a year of working with some of the best web developers on the continent, www.snl24.com/soccerladuma is now the digital cathedral of football in Africa.   I can honestly say that the Match Centre on the new Soccer Laduma website rivals any in the world. We've created a Fan Park where you can go hang out with supporters of only your club, which is a much safer environment to chat about your team if you looking for some respite from your rival fans talking over you. For those of you who are aspiring journalists, we have a Get Published section where you can post match reports, debates, discussions and if your articles start getting noticed (believe me when I tell you Soccer Laduma will take notice) who knows, before long you may be recruited to come work for the Soccer Laduma team.    With 45 million page impressions last month and just over a million unique users on our site, if you're not part of South African soccer's biggest online footballing family, then it's time to join us.    To all of you who are still learning how to navigate all the new features on our site, it will take a bit of time but once you have the hang of it you will grow to love it I'm sure. As always, your opinion is vital to us as we try and improve for you all the time. If there is anything on the new site that you can't find, that doesn't work or that you would like to see added, please let us know and email our web administrator Ashraf on ash@snl24.com/soccerladuma or email me on clint@snl24.com/soccerladuma.