ALTERNATIVE CAREERS IN SPORTS: SPORTS AGENT

Much like a description of an Italian word “Regista” in football agents orchestrate, directs, negotiates footballer’s contracts and play a key role in securing better deals for their clients. Former professional footballer Tefu Mashamaite is one of the directors for the sports agency called The Collective Sports Agency (TCSA) that launched in May this year. In this EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW chats to The Village Mag about his company and its importance thereof.

Tefu Mashamaite played football for a number of clubs including SuperSports United and the mighty Kaizer Chiefs before he retired officially from playing football in 2019, and is now serving his first ever professional role of directorship at The Collective Sports Agency (TCSA). TCSA is a vibrant, young and emerging player management company that seeks to contribute to the development of sports in the country. The fact that it is run by a former pro-athlete, therefore seek to inculcate some of the values and redress pitfalls that footballer’s encounters.

His inspiration to start a company stems from the growing need for development of sports in the country and Tefu believes that as a former athlete, he is an important stakeholder in the direction which he feels sports should take. As new as the company is, “the long term vision of TCSA is to champion all sporting codes” Tefu explained. For now, the agency is sorely focused on soccer. They have the likes of Mothusi Gopane, Ian de Lange and many more youngsters on their books they would like to watch grow and become role models on and off the pitch.

Most agents are known for being corrupt and like every layer of our society, unfortunately exploitation continues to compromise our core values and the fact that sports agents do not have any regulatory body and all the affairs are regulated by the governing body and player’s union, has increased the level of exploitation of athletes. Tefu stretched that “the fact that the onus is on us to make sure that we push back any damage they (corrupt agents) may try to instill,” and by “us” he meant the likes of TCSA and other agencies like ProSport International owned by the legendary agent Mike Makaab.

Most athletes, especially footballers, retire broke and that has sparked TCSA to establish a financial wing of the agency whose main objective would be to tackle the issue of finances for professional athletes. Tefu said “Financial education is one of our own core values”. The issue of poor financial management was also stressed by Tebogo Monyai, the 1^st Vice President of the South African Football Players Union (SAFPU) in our April 2021 issue. “Upcoming athletes should focus on cultivating and nurturing their talents and dreams because there is nothing more refreshing than seeing athlete’s living stable lives post retirement as we all know that athlete’s careers are short and you need something to fall back on” concluded Mashamaite.

You can find Tefu Mashamaite and TCSA on all social media platforms using their names.