New Team, Big Dreams
After my formative experience of Cape Town football 2 years ago, I was curious to find out more about the city’s newly established and only top flight team, Cape Town City FC.
Created just 3 years ago, after the purchase and relocation of the Mpumalanga Black Aces franchise, the club is fast becoming a force to be reckoned with in African football.
So what does it take to build a new football culture in a city still deeply divided in post-apartheid South Africa?
How do you create fans from scratch, and balance performance on the field with community work off it?
And what are the ambitions for its future and legacy?
After a chance meeting at a recent home fixture, I was lucky enough to sit down with Michel Comitis, CTC’s Commercial Director, to find out more.
The club was born in 2016, sporting a slick modern brand to match its forward thinking approach.
‘Football is incredibly culturally relevant in this city’, Michel began, taking us a matter of seconds to dive into the significance of the sport in his home city.
‘There was a Cape Town City team established here years ago, back in 1962, but it’s definitely not a straightforward history to the present day’.
As Michel continued to talk me through the various teams and owners to have shaped the Cape Town football landscape over the years, I was struck by the intricate detail of his knowledge, which was surely far beyond his years.
Still in his 20’s, Michel is by no means your typical football club director, but has been living and breathing Cape Town football since birth.
‘I’ve lived my whole life with intimate proximity to the workings of football’, he shared, talking us briefly through his father’s footballing pedigree and the unavoidable family tie to the game.
John Comitis, owner and chairman of the club, was a player himself in South Africa during apartheid rule here, and also had spells playing professionally in Greece and Scotland.
Since retiring from playing, and building a successful business empire in the retail world, John has played an integral part in the development of the Cape Town football scene.
A founding member of both Cape Town Spurs and Ajax Cape Town, two historic local clubs, before eventually taking on the challenge of CTCFC, the Comitis family are clearly no strangers to the challenges of promoting football in the city.
Chairman John Comitis with CTCFC’s big-name manager, Benni McCarthy (Champions League winner with Porto and ex-Blackburn Rovers striker)
‘The club is a pure football project’, explained Michel. ‘We might be a new team, but some of the people here have decades worth of SA football passion and experience’
‘A big motivation behind forming the club was to right the wrongs of the past, and to build something that truly represents Cape Town and the love of the game here’, he shared.
In a city living in the footballing shadows of Johannesburg, and in a nation still challenged by the legacy of Apartheid rule, Michel explained how difficult it was in the early days to get started.
‘The city and the modern nation was founded on segregation and movement of people - it’s no surprise the idea of a mass market of locals supporting a regional team was odd’, he shared.
‘Historically, it’s fair to say that Cape Town failed its local footballing community’, he explained, ‘and it’s no surprise kids growing up here support the Kaizer Chiefs or the Pirates (traditional Johannesburg teams) instead of local sides’
‘But CTC has brought back that feeling of civic pride. It’s fast becoming the city’s team. It’s bizarre that it’s only 3 years old, and it’s already become culturally significant - but it is’.
A shot from a city centre market stall perfectly frames what CTCFC are competing against for fans’ attention - big European teams (Barcelona), the Soweto-based SA favourites (Pirates + Chiefs), and the national rugby team (Springboks).
This sense of community engagement and ‘belonging’ are clearly a core part of the club’s ethos. Despite the commercially-savvy, futuristic identity of the club (personified perfectly by their energetic and youthful director), the inspiration for this vision came from football cultures of the past.
‘What we’re doing is forward thinking by SA standards’, explained Michel, citing numerous landmarks achieved thanks to their commercial and media work since launch, ‘but is also tapping into the past, resembling what football was like in previous generations around the world’
‘The growth of football here seems to have skipped the emotional and social part, and jumped straight to the commercial side of things, copying the EPL without laying the foundations’, he continued.
‘The league is successful in a business sense, but maybe we’ve left fan culture, and the real meaning, behind’
‘I’d say that it’s a commercial success, but a cultural failure, and that’s what CTCFC are trying to change’
‘By actually engaging with our community, being representative and valuing the important things, we’re moving the goalposts and changing the landscape of football in SA’
‘We’re allowing people to fall in love with the game again’
The club’s manifesto, proudly shared on their website, describes their vision of inclusion and accessibility and includes references from local and international culture.
The landscape in which Michel and CTCFC are operating is a challenging one, particularly due to the political and social contexts of South African sporting life. Despite football being the most played and watched sport around the country, the funding, infrastructure and accessibility to the game does not match up.
‘There are around 10x more football than rugby fans in this country’, Michel explained, ‘but from the outside looking in, you would always assume that rugby and cricket are the biggest sports here’
‘We’re suffering a kind of colonial hangover’, he continued, ‘and haven’t quite shifted the balance towards what is clearly the most popular sport around the country’
When asked about how South Africa ranked in the present day, Michel offered a clear diagnosis.
‘We’re an underperforming football nation’
‘We have a 50 million population, a rich and celebrated football culture, inside a diverse country with a range of football talents
‘It’s bizarre to think SA football is where it is, but it’s a challenging scenario to be in’
Since apartheid, many questions have been asked about the ownership and equality of SA football, but Michel was keen to point out the leading role the sport played in bringing races and classes together.
‘It’s a misconception that football has always been solely a mass market black sport. It’s always been everybody’s sport’
‘Soccer was the first unifier of sport and society here’, he stated.
‘In the past, yes there were segregated leagues but football was played by all, which is more than can be said for other sports’
Asked about whether the sport could play a more significant role in SA society in the years to come, Michel was positive but realistic.
‘Of course football will continue to serve as a unifier, and I believe can make real change in the communities it serves.
‘But you can’t expect a sport to do what politicians have failed to do’, he observed.
Football is the nation’s most popular sport participation-wise, and is one of the only predominantly black-run industries to survive and flourish post-apartheid.
As a club only a few years old, Michel and CTCFC have achieved a great deal to establish themselves as a growing cultural force in South African football.
‘Everything we have achieved, people said we wouldn’t’, shared Michel, as he summarised the formative seasons of the club.
Twice winners of the domestic cup competition, boasting consistently high league finishes, and under the big-name management of Cape Town boy Benni McCarthy (SA international, Champions League winner with Porto and former Blackburn Rovers striker), the club is a force to be reckoned with domestically.
Despite this early success, there are still a whole host of challenges ahead on the journey.
They are fighting the political and national bias towards other sports, the lack of their own home ground (currently the part-time tenants of the World Cup legacy Green Point stadium), not to mention the difficulties attracting crowds to come to matches.
‘Often we have to beg and borrow training pitches, playing on school fields and being kicked off when we run even 1 minute over our allotted time’, he shared.
‘The next step to real progress is having a home we can call our own, where we can really lay the foundations for the community and family environment of the club to flourish’
‘The biggest measure for us will be the fans’, he continued.
‘Going to the football is not a default activity here, like it is in the UK’, he explained, ‘and it can be difficult to create a fan culture from scratch’
‘In the UK, you have 150 years of clubs and their communities bonding and building that passionate, emotional connection’
‘Here, we’re just getting started and it’s always changing, so it’s no surprise it’s taking time’
‘Yes results are important, and we will continue to pursue success on the field. But over the next few years, it’s about creating something accessible for the Cape Town Football community’
‘In a country where football franchises are swapped and sold yearly, we’re looking to build something that can’t be bought, and stands the test of time’
‘I’m in a unique position to understand the dichotomy and balance of SA football, with my background and upbringing versus the reality of growing up in a football family’ - Michel Comitis