Exclusive: Ajax Cape Town Is The Team To Beat This Season - CEO George Comitis

After kick-starting the new Premier Soccer League season by beating Bloemfontein Celtic 2-0, can we safely say Ajax Cape Town will be a force to be reckoned with in the title challenge this year?

Look, we are very excited and it was really great for everybody to win the first game. However, we still have to keep our feet on the ground and keep doing the right things.

In a nut shell, what are your long and short term plans for the season?

We are quite open with our plans for this season. We want to be competing in the league. Anywhere in the Top 4, as long as we are there and if we could get one of the Cups we would be very happy.

It is a known fact that in South Africa a coach is judged on his early results. If you lose three or four games on the trot you get fired. So what is the mandate that you have given to coach Foppe De Haan?

(laughs) The mandate for the coach is to play good football. Play good football and score a lot of goals for more people to come and watch the games. If you do that, then do not worry, you will end up in the Top 4. That’s all we want.

You guys have one of the country’s best development structures in which you work together with Ajax Amsterdam. What is the latest information regarding your partnership and do you see it bearing fruit?

Look, we have a very good relationship with Ajax Amsterdam. Obviously we take from the expertise that they have, we even sent two of our youngsters there, with Thulani  Serero and Sameeg Doutie on trial. We have always had an open door relationship with them. Even the coaches, we sent two of our youth coaches there this year and also our goalkeeper coach. We are taking from their expertise and their technical advice, and that’s where we are getting our biggest benefit.

Obviously player movements have been the talk of the town and teams have been busy bolstering their ammunition ahead of the season. What are the major coups that you pulled in the transfer market and what can people expect from them?

We are very happy obviously with the return of Terror Fanteni, he fits well and he is about 70% of where his game should be. There is still a lot to come from him but definitely the two wingers Paul Rusike and Khama Billiat both from Zimbabwe are very exciting prospects. They are very quick and young, they have got fantastic skills and those two signings are probably going to excite everybody.

The PSL Chairperson Dr. Irvin Khoza recently addressed the media and said that the agreed new minimum ticket price for this season is R40, but added that it will be up to the clubs to see what they can charge. So what will you be charging for your matches this season?

Look, I think we will be going with the minimum charge of R40 because there are those needy people that can only afford that. Also at the same time we have got to say the R20 ticket has been around for the last 7 years so it had to increase at some point and especially with the new stadium coming up and the cost of running events there. So R40 will be the minimum , especially when you are playing at a big stadium like the Cape Town Stadium then on the main grand stand we can charge R40, R50 or R60. On different areas you can charge a little bit more for tickets but you have to have at least 60-70% of your tickets at the R40 price.

Obviously after hosting such a magnificent World Cup the question still remains about what can be done to bring back those diverse faces we saw in the stands during the football extravaganza. As the Urban Warriors what plans do you have in place to draw much more support for the club this season?

I think Friday night proved a big point. It was the first time that there were 45 000 people at a match. It’s the first time in the history of Cape Town that so many people supported a local football game. Besides the World Cup there was also a night when there was rugby at Newlands and football playing at the same time, football outperformed rugby. There were only about 22 000 fans at Newlands. So you can see the hunger for people wanting to come to a safe environment, good stadium and follow on football Fridays. We did it on a Friday night, we did a double header which was us trying something new and we feel the demand is there, as people are crying for some top notch entertainment. We supplied it and it worked.

The national team coach Pitso Mosimane is blooding in young talent into the senior team ahead of the Niger game. Considering that Ajax Cape Town are regarded as a player factory for the country, what are your thoughts regarding the coach and his plans for the team?

I think he is introducing youth but he is not delivering more than that. You know you have to start planning for the next World Cup. Pitso should start building the team around players aged from 22 to 23 years old. Those players would be mature at 27 to 28 when that comes along. We definitely have a lot of good youngsters, we have 5 players in the Under 23 and Pitso has to start looking at the Under 23 and see what’s available for him. However we are behind him, we believe he will do a good job so we are going to keep playing good football. If the players do well then they will get noticed, simple as that.

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