By Thandisizwe Mgudlwa
Patrice Motsepe is a mining magnate who owns Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club, which is one of the biggest teams in South Africa.
Since the inception of the PSL in 1996, Sundowns have won the league title a record six times.
Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club has its roots in Marabastad, a cosmopolitan area in the north-western part of the Tshwane CBD.
Marabastad was a culturally diverse area until the Group Areas Act was enacted and its residents were forced to relocate to Atteridgeville, Eersterus and Laudium. Sundowns Football Club was formed in the early 1960s by a group of youngsters who called Marabastad their home. Among them were Frank “ABC” Motsepe, Roy Fischer, Ingle Singh and Bernard Hartze.
In the late 1990s the Motsepes established The Motsepe Foundation to undertake and oversee their various philanthropic initiatives.
One of these initiatives is the South African Football Association (SAFA) Second Division, currently known as ABC Motsepe League for sponsorship reasons. This was founded in 1998 as the current Second Division and the overall third tier of South African football (soccer). The competition is regulated by SAFA, and until 2012 had been sponsored by mobile telecommunications company Vodacom.
Currently the Motsepe League features 144 teams in total, divided into 9 divisions, borderly decided by the 9 geo-political provinces of South Africa: Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu Natal, Northern Cape, Western Cape, Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West.
This means, that each Provincial division contains 16 teams as standard. The winner of each Provincial division qualifies for the annual Promotional Play-offs, where the winners of two streams, will get promoted to the National First Division. In each Province, the two lowest ranked teams by the end of the season, will be relegated to U21 SAB Regional League, which in return will promote two play-off winners from the Regional Championships.
An important rule to note, is that all clubs in South Africa also are allowed to compete with youth teams (U19/U21) and/or a Reserve team in a lower SAFA league. If a club opt to field such teams, the U19 teams will start out at the fifth level in the U19 National League, while U21 teams or Reserve teams will start out at the fourth level in the U21 SAB Regional League.
If any U19 team win promotion for U21 SAB Regional League or SAFA Second Division, this promotion is fully accepted. No clubs are however entitled to field two teams at the same level, and rule 4.6.4 of the SAFA regulations states, that if the mother club play in the National First Division or Premier Soccer League, then the highest level these additional Youth/Reserve teams are allowed to compete, will be the SAFA Second Division. In such cases, where a non-promotable team manage to win their regional division, the ticket for the promotional playoffs will instead be handed over to the second best team in the division.
Born Patrice Thlopane Motsepe on January 28, 1962, to Augustine Motsepe, a schoolteacher turned small businessman, who owned a Spaza shop (mini-supperette), popular with black mine workers, it was from there that Motsepe learnt basic business principles from his father as well as first hand exposure to mining.
Motsepe’s parents were hard working; he was brought into a family where his mother, who was originally a schoolteacher, had started her own Spaza shop (small supermarket), becoming a mainstay for the local Black mine workers. This entrepreneurship taught Mr Motsepe the principles of business ownership. His father, a hardworking miner, instilled the ideals of hard work.
Mr. Motsepe began his business career as a child when he would wake early to help his entrepreneurial father by selling products to mine workers at his father’s shop.
“I must have been about eight when my dad said one day, We make so much money when you’re behind the counter you should take over the business when you grow up. But it was hard work, from 6am to 8pm. I soon realised I needed to choose a career that would keep me away from that shop! That’s how I came to decide when was only eight that I’d become a lawyer.”He went on to earn a BA from Swaziland University and a LLB from Wits University.
The greatman also went on to form Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), the first non-racial, united and recognized business organization in South Africa and serves as its President. He was a Partner of Bowman Gilfillan Inc., a leading South African law firm, specializing in mining and business law. He was employed for approximately 4 years by McGuire Woods LLP, a law firm in Richmond, Virginia, USA.
In 1994 Motsepe became the first black lawyer to be made a partner at the law firm Bowman Gilfillan, where he specialized in mining and business law before becoming restless. He then shifted to the mining industry. He Started a contract mining operation called Future Mining which provided various services to Vaal Reefs gold mine, now part of AngloGold. Unable to secure a loan, he ran his business from a briefcase for the first eight months.
Mr.Motsepe formed African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) in 1997 and acquired a number of marginal shafts at Vaal Reefs in January 1998 on favorable financial terms, followed by the purchase of other marginal shafts owned by AngloGold in the Free State.
Today he’s the biggest single shareholder of the world’s fifth-largest gold mining company. His firm, African Rainbow Minerals, controls 19.8 per cent of Harmony. His family trust owns 43.1 per cent of ARM.
Forbes magazine racks him as 642nd richest person in the world and South Africa’s first black billionaire with an estimated net worth of $2.7 billion dollars as of March 2014.
Harmony Gold Mining Company specializes in turning old digs into new digs. Harmony is South Africa’s largest gold miner, after acquiring ARMgold in 2003, and the sixth largest in the world. The company buys mature gold mines with lagging production and turns them into low-cost, high-productivity mines. It had 2003 revenues of $1.2 billion and has 50,718 employees.
“I was exposed to the spirit of Ubuntu/Botho at a very young age. I remember as a seven year-old working in my father’s grocery store, seeing poor members of our community receiving free groceries from my mother. My parents also regularly paid for the school and university fees of less fortunate children from our communities.”
Earlier in 2013, Motsepe announced that the Motsepe Family “will contribute at least half of the funds generated by our family assets to the Motsepe Foundation” to be used to improve the lifestyles and living conditions of poor, disabled, unemployed, women, youth, workers and marginalized South Africans.
Motsepe had earlier commented, “I decided quite some time ago to give at least half of the funds generated by our family assets to uplift poor and other disadvantaged and marginalised South Africans but was also duty-bound and committed to ensuring that it would be done in a way that protects the interests and retains the confidence of our shareholders and investors”.
The Motsepe family has been inspired by the Giving Pledge that was initiated by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to encourage wealthy families worldwide to give at least half of their wealth to charity.
He further remarked, “South Africans are caring, compassionate and loving people. It has always been part of our culture and tradition to assist and care for less fortunate and marginalised members of our communities. This culture is also embodied in the spirit and tradition of Ubuntu/Botho. I was also a beneficiary of various people, Black and White, in South Africa and in the US, who educated, trained, mentored and inspired me and whose faith and belief in me contributed to my success in my profession, business and elsewhere. The same can be said about my wife, Precious, and we are deeply indebted to them and many more. My parents taught me about business and entrepreneurship and also about the duty of giving and caring for the poor and marginalised.”
He and Precious recognize the huge responsibility and duty that the Motsepe family has to poor, unemployed, disabled, women, youth, workers and marginalised South Africans.
They also have an ongoing obligation of nation building, uniting Black and White South Africans and contributing towards making South Africa, Africa and the World a better place.
“We have contributed over many years to education and health; the development and upliftment of women, youth, workers and the disabled; churches; the development of entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs; rural and urban upliftment; soccer including youth soccer development; music and to other charities and foundations.”
Another person Motsepe has expressed his deep gratitude to, is Warren Buffett, for the advice and wisdom he shared with him in Omaha during August 2012 and for inspiring thousands of people worldwide to give and care for the less fortunate.
Motsepe and his wife are appreciate Bill and Melinda Gates for their encouragement and for providing them with additional informationon the Giving Pledge at their meeting in Cape Town during December 2012. Their work in Africa and other continents and their commitment to humanity continues to inspire the Motsepe’s and many people throughout the world.
“Our culture, religious upbringing and values guided and influenced us in making this commitment and we are proud that our children support our pledge.
Motsepe added, “Their future and the future of all South Africans requires us to give hope and build a better and brighter future for all our people.”
Copyright 2015 African Journalist
