'Footballers must finish school'

Players will need to be employable after their sports careers end

The South African Football Players Union (Safpu) has encouraged all of its members to go back to school, in order to receive an education and to further their careers outside of soccer, the union said in a statement on Monday.

“We wish that all our members with matric can register with different institutions to further their studies,” the statement said.

“Even those who did not finish matric must go back to school and make sure that they matriculate. Players are role models in the society and this will encourage even the community members to see the importance of education through players.”

Safpu added that the representative body wants it’s members to become responsible citizens once their playing days are over, starting with a solid educational foundation.

“Players education is the priority to Safpu programmes and that does not exclude the financial education,” Safpu said.

“We want to create the generation of educated football players as that will help our members during their career transition period. We want to make it easy for players to be employed after their playing days.”