One of Alexandra’s legendary footballers will be among 10 other former stars of the beautiful game who will participate in a project to ensure they have careers to sustain themselves and enable them to lead a dignified life after football.
Known as the Betway 12th Man project, the programme seeks to upskill former legends of the beautiful game and will be championed by the former captain of both Kaizer Chiefs and Leeds United in the English Premier League Lucas ‘Rhoo’ Radebe.
Maimane Alfred ‘Ngubo’ Phiri had a colourful career with various local teams such as Jomo Cosmos, Ajax Cape Town, Moroka Swallows and Supersport United before moving abroad to Turkey to cap his career with three top sides in that country, Genclerbiligi, Samsunspor and Vanspor, and was also a regular Bafana Bafana midfield maestro.
Upon retirement, Phiri, who is a successful Alex businessman, went on to found the Maimane Alexandra Development Foundation which gave birth to one of the country’s topmost football development projects, the Maimane Alfred Phiri (Map) Games.
Founded in 2001, the Map Games is one of the most successful development initiatives in the beautiful game run by former players and has been running annually ever since in association with the Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association.
Phiri also runs a soccer tournament which has become known as Alexandra’s own football ‘World Cup’, which assembles teams from Gauteng, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga to slug it out for prize money of more than R200 000.
Phiri also formed his own club soon after retirement in 2009 at the age of 32 known as FC Alexandra. The team worked it’s way up to the ABC Motsepe League but Phiri later sold his franchise after several years in the game after founding stars such as Lebogang Manyama who now plays for Kaizer Chiefs.
In an interview, Phiri described the Betway 12th Man project as a ‘good initiative’ that would seek to sustain the lives of the country’s football heroes and heroines by giving them skills in various aspects of the game, including administrative and management functions.
Phiri would also like to see Betway getting involved in his initiatives.
“I certainly would like to see Betway play a role in the running of the Map Games to take them to a much higher pedestal. Map Games is great development initiative that deserves the support of the private sector so we can together unearth the future stars of Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana,” Phiri said.
The other nine legends include Andries ‘Chaka Chaka’ Mpondo (Moroka Swallows); Edward ‘Magents’ Motale (Orlando Pirates); Fikile Sithole (Soweto Ladies and Banyana Banyana); Portia Modise (Fortuna Hjorring, Palace Super Falcons and Croesus Ladies); Khabo ZItha (Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies, Soweto Ladies and Banyana Banyana).
Gloria Hlalele (Soweto Ladies); Sibongile Khumalo (Soweto Ladies); Steve Lekoelea (Orlando Pirates, Maritzburg United, Platinum Stars, Bafana Bafana and Mbabane Highlanders); Steve Sekano (Moroka Swallows and the Steve Sekano Foundation).
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