THE 2009/2010 South African Football Association's Vodacom League soccer season will start on July 24 to accommodate the 2010 World Cup finals.

THE 2009/2010 South African Football Association's Vodacom League soccer season will start on July 24 to accommodate the 2010 World Cup finals.

This was announced yesterday by Balebetse Monnakgotla, Safa's competitions department director.

"We will have a shorter soccer season in order to support Bafana Bafana in their preparations for the 2010 World Cup finals.

"As Safa, we want Bafana Bafana to have adequate time to sharpen themselves for the tournament so that they can make all of us proud.

"The last league matches will be played on February 28, with the national play-offs taking place in Mpumalanga (Witbank) from March 28 to April 5."

Monnakgotla and Safa officials have already started with preparations for the upcoming season by addressing a series of workshops in various parts of the country.

"The workshops are part of the consultative process to provide sufficient time for the teams to prepare themselves for the new season," said Monnakgotla.

Safa chief executive officer Raymond Hack said: "The workshops will also assist the association to plan accordingly for the new season.

"We had numerous challenges in the past season, and the Association is coming up with a number of correcting actions that will ensure a smooth running of the Vodacom League.

"Workshop discussions will focus on topics like players' insurance, judicial matters, competition rules and regulations and travel subsidy, just to name but a few."

The workshops started in Pretoria on Tuesday for the teams in Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

For Northern Cape and Free State, the workshops were in Kimberley on Saturday.

The rest of the workshops are Western Cape (June 26), Gauteng and Mpumalanga (June 28) and KwaZulu-Natal (July 5).