Springboks switch into full RGR mode in Johannesburg

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus and his charges concluded an important two days of training on Saturday where the objective was to get the entire squad aligned with an eye on the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry (RGR) series starting next Saturday against the All Blacks in Johannesburg following the Test against Argentina in Buenos Aires last week.

The travelling squad, which included 26 players and a host of coaches, returned to South Africa in two groups on Monday night and Tuesday, and spent most of the week having flush-out and gym sessions to get the players back into the local time zone and match ready following the physical Test against Los Pumas, which the Boks won 17-10. esporist.org

The squad returned to the training field on Friday and had another field session on Saturday before having the next day and a half off to spend time with their families before switching into full blown Test week for their RGR series opener.

The teams will play four back-to-back Tests against New Zealand, starting with Saturday’s encounter at Ellis Park (22 August), before moving to Cape Town for the second Test at the Cape Town Stadium (29 August), the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg (5 September), and concluding the series at the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore (12 September).

Bok hooker Johan Grobbelaar and utility forward Elrigh Louw, who have been released to play for the Bulls in their RGR match against the All Blacks on Saturday evening, will rejoin the national squad on Sunday.

‘Important to manage players’

“It was important to manage the players who travelled to Argentina well and afford them sufficient time to recover from the match and switch back into the domestic time zone, which is why we only started training as a full group late in the week,” said Erasmus.

“But we are pleased that the players are well recovered and ready to give everything for the forthcoming Tests against the All Blacks.

“It will undoubtedly be a very challenging tournament, but we are looking forward to it as a collective. This series is almost like playing the knock-out stages of a Rugby World Cup because we are facing one of the world’s best week in and week out, and we all understand the magnitude of the RGR series.

“It’s a new and exciting challenge, and we have been putting in a lot of work behind the scenes, especially the group of coaches and players who remained behind in South Africa in the last two weeks, so we will finetune the areas of our game, which we would like to improve next week as we get ready to take the field.”

The opening match kicks off at 5.10pm next Saturday, and will be broadcast live on SuperSport.

The All Blacks have named a strong side for Saturday’s Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry clash against the Vodacom Bulls at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria.

READ: Bulls Name Formidable Side for All Blacks Showdown at Loftus

Taylor returns from injury to captain the All Blacks for the first time in his 110th All Blacks match and first match of the tour. Props Xavier Numia and Tyrel Lomax will also play their first match of the tour.

Six players from the All Blacks team who beat the Sharks 54-0 on Tuesday back up for the Bulls match: lock Josh Lord, loose forward Wallace Sititi, halfbacks Kyle Preston and Cortez Ratima (who are both playing their third game of the tour), midfielder Timoci Tavatavanawai, and outside back Emoni Narawa.

A total of 14 players named in the 23 to take on the Vodacom Bulls played in the opening match against the DHL Stormers.

“The Bulls have consistently been South Africa’s best franchise side, making the United Rugby Championship finals in four of the last five years,” said Rennie.

“Loftus Versfeld is one of the most formidable rugby grounds in the world, so we are aware of the challenge in front of us and excited at what lies ahead.

“This is also our final hit out before the first Test match against the Springboks, so it is an important game for us. There is healthy competition for Test spots so this is another opportunity for players to put their hands up for selection.

“Huge congratulations to Codie on his first All Blacks captaincy. He is a top man and has done a great job leading this tour group. This is a proud moment for an All Blacks centurion who has made a massive contribution to this team as a player and a leader.”

All Blacks team:
1 Xavier Numia
2 Codie Taylor (captain)
3 Tyrel Lomax
4 Fabian Holland
5 Patrick Tuipulotu
6 Simon Parker
7 Anton Segner
8 Peter Lakai
9 Cortez Ratima
10 Josh Jacomb
11 Josh Moorby
12 Anton Lienert-Brown
13 Rieko Ioane
14 Leroy Carter
15 Beauden Barrett

Replacements:
16 Samisoni Taukei’aho
17 George Bower
18 Siale Lauaki
19 Josh Lord
20 Wallace Sititi
21 Kyle Preston
22 Timoci Tavatavanawai
23 Emoni Narawa

The post All Blacks Gear Up for Bulls Challenge appeared first on SportsClub.

Kaizer Chiefs vice-captain Inacio Miguel has called on his teammates to respect Mamelodi Sundowns without fearing the reigning African champions ahead of their Betway Premiership showdown.

READ: Da Cruz Wants Chiefs to Match Sundowns’ Level

The Glamour Boys are bracing for a tough test against Sundowns when the two sides meet at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.

Amakhosi head into the clash on a high after securing back-to-back Betway Premiership victories over Kruger United and Sekhukhune United.

READ: Velebayi Confident Chiefs Can Rise to Sundowns Test

Miguel has called for a balanced approach ahead of Saturday’s Betway Premiership clash against Mamelodi Sundowns.

“First of all, we have to respect Sundowns. The whole of South Africa must respect them – they are Champions League winners,” Miguel said.

“We will face them with a lot of respect, but we cannot forget who we are.

“We need to understand that we have the capacity to overcome Sundowns. We must focus on ourselves, not them. Our energy will be spent on recovery and analysing how they intend to approach us.

“Their planning against us won’t be the same as it was for Polokwane. It will be difficult to stop us, but we also need to be just as clinical in how we stop them.”

The post Miguel: Chiefs Must Respect Sundowns Without Fearing Them appeared first on SportsClub.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 15 – Football is, without question, Kenya’s biggest sport.

Walk through almost any estate, school, neighbourhood or social gathering and football is part of the conversation. Children grow up dreaming of becoming professional footballers. The English Premier League dominates television screens, the Kenyan Premier League has a loyal following, and whenever Harambee Stars play, the country’s attention shifts towards the national team.

Yet there is a strange contradiction at the heart of Kenyan sport.

For all its popularity, football does not necessarily provide the financial security that its players deserve. In fact, a growing comparison with basketball is raising an uncomfortable question: why can professional basketball players in Kenya appear to earn considerably more than footballers in the country’s biggest sport?

The numbers, although difficult to verify comprehensively because Kenyan football does not have a publicly available league-wide salary database, tell a troubling story.

Figures circulating within the local game have placed the typical monthly earnings of many Kenyan Premier League footballers at around Sh 77,000 (USD600), with significant variation between clubs and players. Some earn considerably more, while others earn dramatically less. Former AFC Leopards striker Raymond Omondi has previously spoken about players earning salaries as low as Sh10,000 (USD 77) month.

The contrast becomes even more striking when Nairobi City Thunder enters the conversation.

The basketball club has developed one of the most ambitious professional models in Kenyan sport, with reports in 2024 putting the maximum monthly wage available to its players at around Sh4.5 million (USD 34,000) collectively, depending on the stage of competition and performance. The club has also increasingly operated with a full-time professional model, something still relatively uncommon in Kenyan sport.

The question, therefore, is not simply whether basketball players are earning more.

It is why?

The City Thunder example

Nairobi City Thunder offers perhaps the clearest case study of what happens when a Kenyan sports club is deliberately built around professionalism.

Over the past few seasons, Thunder have transformed themselves from a domestic basketball side into an organisation with continental ambitions. They became the first Kenyan club to qualify for the Basketball Africa League in 2024 and repeated the feat in 2025. Domestically, they won back-to-back Kenya National Basketball Federation titles in the 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons without losing a game.

That success has attracted corporate interest.

In June 2026, I&M Bank committed Sh10 million (USD 77,000) to Thunder for the remainder of the season, with the money intended to strengthen areas including training, travel, player welfare and general operations.

That investment matters because it demonstrates something Kenyan football has struggled to consistently achieve: turning sporting success into a compelling commercial proposition.

The Thunder story also suggests that investors are willing to put serious money into Kenyan basketball when they see a club that looks professionally run, ambitious and capable of competing beyond the domestic market, but this is where the comparison becomes complicated;

Basketball has fewer players on the court and generally requires a smaller playing roster than football. A football club may carry more than 20 players, alongside coaches, assistants, medical teams, analysts, equipment staff and administrators.

A basketball organisation can therefore potentially concentrate a greater proportion of its available resources on a smaller group of athletes, but squad size alone cannot explain everything. After all, football attracts significantly larger audiences in Kenya.

So where is the money?

Popularity is not the same as profitability

This may be the biggest misconception surrounding Kenyan football.

Being the most popular sport does not automatically mean being the most commercially successful.

Football has the audience. But the question is whether the sport has built the infrastructure necessary to monetize that audience.

Kenya’s top flight now has a broadcast partnership with Azam TV, following a seven-year agreement announced in 2023. FKF also maintains official broadcast partners for its competitions. The league has also attracted major sponsorship.

For the 2025/26 season, FKF and SportPesa announced a Sh20 million (USD 154,000) prize-money pool, with Sh15 million (USD 116,000) going to the champions, Sh3 million (USD 23,000) to the runners-up and Sh2 million (USD 15,000) to the third-placed team. More significantly, reports around the new sponsorship structure indicated that Sh1.2 billion (USD 9.2 million)of a wider Sh2 billion (USD 15.4 million) funding package was intended to go directly to clubs, while Sh800 million (USD 6.1 million) would support league operations and development.

On paper, this sounds like progress, but it also raises an obvious question. If significant amounts of money are entering Kenyan football, how much of that money ultimately reaches the footballers?

That is where the conversation needs to move beyond simply blaming clubs.

Is football too expensive to operate?

There is a legitimate economic argument here.

A professional football club is expensive.

There are more players. More staff. More training requirements. Larger travel parties. Larger pitches and stadium requirements. Medical departments, equipment, security, matchday logistics and administrative costs all add up.

Basketball can potentially operate with a leaner structure, but that explanation only goes so far. The real difference may be the business structure surrounding the athlete. A number of Kenyan basketball players operate within institutions where sport is connected to employment, corporate sponsorship or established organizational structures. Some players are not simply treated as athletes who receive match-related payments; they can become part of a broader professional organization.

That distinction is crucial.

A footballer who receives a monthly club salary is dependent on that club’s ability and willingness to pay. A player who is incorporated into a wider employment structure can potentially have a more stable relationship with the organization, and that stability is one of the biggest missing pieces in Kenyan football.

The real problem may be professionalism

Tony Ochieng, head coach of Strathmore Blades, recently made a similar argument about Kenyan basketball. He called for greater corporate sponsorship, saying increased investment would allow clubs to recruit better players, improve competition and pay athletes properly.

That is revealing.

The lesson from basketball may not necessarily be that basketball is inherently more profitable than football. It may be that basketball is beginning to understand the value of professionalizing the product.

Thunder’s rise is a perfect example.

Corporate investment has helped the club build a competitive roster. Success has created continental exposure. Continental exposure increases the club’s commercial appeal. That commercial appeal attracts more sponsors. It is a cycle.

Kenyan football needs to find a similar cycle.

Instead, the football ecosystem often appears stuck in a situation where clubs struggle financially, players struggle to receive adequate wages, investment remains limited and the quality of the league suffers.

Then the cycle repeats itself.

The player is left carrying the burden

This is where the conversation becomes more serious than football versus basketball.

Imagine dedicating your entire youth to football. You train from childhood. You sacrifice education opportunities. You travel for trials. You spend money on boots, transport, food, fitness and recovery. Eventually, you make it into the professional game.

Then you discover that being a professional footballer does not necessarily mean being financially secure. That is a devastating reality.

A player cannot build a sustainable future around a profession that barely covers his immediate expenses, and there are already examples of how difficult that reality can become. In Kenyan women’s football, former Kenya Lionesses player Neddy Atieno has spoken about earning only KSh6,000 per month in 2014 and KSh12,000 two years later, amounts she said were insufficient once costs such as supplements, transport and equipment were considered. She eventually moved towards the corporate world.

That story exposes a larger problem.

What happens to the footballer whose talent is good enough to play professionally but not good enough to earn the kind of money that can change his life?

Does he leave the game?

Does he find another job?

Does he continue playing while struggling financially?

Or does Kenya simply lose another potentially talented player because the football economy could not sustain him?

And then there is the uncomfortable question of leadership

It would be irresponsible to jump from low salaries to allegations of embezzlement without evidence.

There needs to be a distinction between mismanagement, poor commercial strategy and outright theft, but asking where the money goes is not unreasonable;

Kenyan football has repeatedly been promised growth, professionalism, better broadcasting, improved player welfare and stronger commercial partnerships.

The players should therefore be entitled to ask a simple question:

Where is the financial benefit of all this growth?

If football is receiving sponsorship money, broadcast revenue, gate receipts and other commercial income, supporters deserve greater transparency over how those resources are distributed.

How much goes to clubs?

How much goes towards administration?

How much is spent on development?

How much reaches players?

How many clubs pay salaries on time?

How many players have proper contracts?

And how many footballers can realistically call football their full-time profession without needing a second source of income?

These are not accusations.

They are questions that a professional sporting industry should be able to answer.

Kenya’s biggest sport deserves a better football economy

Perhaps the most ironic part of this entire debate is that basketball itself is still struggling. Even those within the sport recognize that corporate investment is necessary to professionalize the league. Ochieng’s call for more sponsors demonstrates that basketball is not some financially perfect alternative to football, but basketball has shown what can happen when the right pieces begin falling into place.

Nairobi City Thunder has demonstrated that Kenyan clubs can build a professional identity, attract corporate partners, dominate domestically and compete internationally. Their recent KSh10 million I&M Bank partnership is another indication that corporate Kenya is willing to invest when it sees a compelling sporting proposition.

Football has a much larger audience.

It has deeper cultural roots.

It has more aspiring young players.

It has greater international visibility.

And yet, for too many footballers, prosperity remains painfully distant.

That should concern everyone involved in the sport.

Because the ultimate measure of a professional sporting industry is not simply how many people watch it.

It is whether the people producing the entertainment can actually build a life from it.

Kenya does not have a shortage of football talent.

It may have a shortage of football economics that reward that talent properly, and until football can answer why a player in Kenya’s biggest sport can struggle financially while a smaller sport is beginning to create better professional structures, there will continue to be more questions than answers.

Perhaps that is the real discovery.

The problem may not be that Kenyans do not love football enough.

Perhaps Kenyan football has simply never learned how to turn that love into a sustainable business.