As glorified and prestigious as the Bayhill Premier Cup is made out to be, it lacks one aspect to rightfully claim that it owns the mantle of the best u.19 football spectacle across the globe.
It is quite evident that the absence of international appeal is missing for the Easter spectacle to attain further prestige.
Needless to say, that the tournament has shown in the past it does have significant drawing power to attract overseas participation.
Swansea City from the UK, then still in the English Premier League, as well as Zesco United from Zambia, Amelia Bielefield of Germany and a couple of teams from New Zealand and England, already graced the Erica Park turf in the past.
There have been murmurs that it is high time that the Bayhill working committee think bigger and put in more effort to get big-name teams from outside the country’s borders to partake in this prestigious tournament that first took place in 1989 in Rocklands, Mitchells Plain.
This is probably the only objective that should be put on the agenda for the near future. Especially after the organizing committee managed to lure a new (technical) sponsor in Primo for the next three years which also coincided with the launch of the 35th anniversary held at the Mayoral banquet hall of Cape Town’s CIvic Centre on Saturday evening.
The tournament will be played from 27 till 31 March at the Erica Park Sports Complex in Belhar, with the Final to be played for the second year in a row at the Athlone Stadium on Easter Monday.
One of the pertinent points highlighted by Cristobel Kota, a former marketing guru from the then title sponsor Metropolitan and a Bayhill alumni, is that the current tournament director Rayaan Alie, played a key role in convincing them that Facebook and social media was the way forward to gain more traction and popularity.
“And that was in 2008 already when this idea was introduced to us and look what was achieved since then,” Kota said.
And in all fairness, Alie’s vision was ‘revolutionary’ in comparison with the old system used when it came to the registration process and keeping track of players.
Similarly, it is time for Bayhill visionary Alie to prove how the tournament, already deemed ‘next level’, really is ‘next level’ by incorporating a strong field of foreign clubs – no disrespect to Windhoek Gymnasium, one for the neighbouring visiting clubs.
One Response
My opinion. You moving away from primary objective here with attraction of outside the border clubs. Bayhill was always the gateway for bigger things for our own development. We all know that quite a few players that went to play there trade outside the border of SA came trough the ranks of the Bayhill legacy. The tournament is playing a huge part in our senior teams development and slow progress but right track.
No problem with outside of South Africa and Africa because its added part of development but it should be manage well with purpose to our own development. South Africa have huge talent and needs the exposure my my view is sections should only have like one international and one African team and the two must be South African.
U have been part of Bayhill for years an saw some good talent coming out of this tournament…Great work guys. Pls don’t discard of our local talent.