The fizz went out of the Coca-Cola Cup competition on Thursday when the international soft-drink giant elected not to renew a lucrative five-year sponsorship contract with the Premier Soccer League (PSL).
The tournament had already been penned in on the PSL’s fixture list for the 2006/07 season and local soccer officials expressed surprise over the decision — ”particularly as we were only informed at a relatively late juncture”.
But PSL CEO Trevor Phillips, commenting from London, said that while ”the song may have ended, the melody will linger on” — and the format of the tournament will remain on the local soccer calendar under a new name and with a different sponsor.
”I don’t foresee any problems in finding another sponsor,” said Phillips, ”and I expect we will be able to secure the same kind of money that made the cup one of the richest club knock-out tournaments on the African continent.”
Coca-Cola, meanwhile, has renewed a 28-year partnership with Fifa as one of the official sponsors of the World Cup and it is believed the decision to bow out of the Coca-Cola Cup was partly due to the South Africa segment of the company devoting its efforts towards the 2010 tournament.
But, at the same time, it has been suggested a change in the company’s top management in South Africa may have contributed to the decision to forge new links regarding sponsorship ventures.
Marketing assets manager Firoze Bhorat, however, insisted that soccer remains ” a fundamental component of the company’s strategy”. — Sapa