With less than three months before the current DStv Premiership season ends, the league’s sponsors have exclusively told iDiski Times that the individual monthly awards would finally be released in the next few weeks.
Since the beginning of the season the DStv Premiership Player of the Month (POM), Coach of the Month (COM), and Goal of the Month (GOM) awards have not been handed over and questions have already been coming from football fans, players and even coaches around this delay.
Normally, these monthly awards are announced immediately after a round of monthly fixtures or grouped into two months, if that particular month did not have many matches.
But the Senior Sponsorship Manager at MultiChoice Tshepiso Sathekge has told iDiski Times that very soon, these awards will be handed over to their recipients.
“For the Player of the Month, Coach of the Month, and Goal of the Month perspective, unfortunately, that hasn’t come out as we would have liked to,” Sathekge commented on the new developments.
“But we have had to look at how we are doing things, especially with the Goal of the Month award, within the next two weeks there’s some really good news that will come out around this award.”
The Goal of the Month has brought a lot of debate in the past and the league and sponsors’ system of going for a fan-voting process, which has been based on popularity more than quality, continuously came up for scrutiny.
The 2022/2023 season has seen absolute dominance from the reigning champions Mamelodi Sundowns, who are now chasing their record-extending sixth league title in a row. They have a record 15-game winning streak in the league and have broken most of the records that were up for grabs this season.
This winning streak also includes 12 clean sheets with their goalkeeper and Bafana Bafana’s number one and captain Ronwen Williams having played in 13 of these games and only conceded two goals.
Sundowns head coach Rulani Mokwena has not dropped a single point since he was appointed to this position towards the end of October 2022, making that an 11-game winning run.
“There’s no issue for the Player of the Month and Coach of the Month awards, we will be coming back soon, putting them together and not treating them separately. For the Goal of the Month, something needed to be done in that space,” said Sathekge.
iDiski Times has learnt that for all the previous months this season, the sponsors and the league took care of the judging processes for the awards but the mystery has been around the delay, which is said to be coming to an end.
The Brazilians are currently 19 points clear at the summit of the log with 55 points from 21 matches and could clinch this title as early as the beginning of April.
This story first appeared in the iDiski Times newspaper, edition 93, which is out and available for free at Shoprite stores in Gauteng.
