Highbury coach has already started the groundwork for next season

Highbury FC coach Kabelo Sibiya is already laying the groundwork for next season, even as his team face their final two Motsepe Foundation Championship matches.

With 39 points from 28 games, the Gqeberha team are currently in sixth place on the log.

They are 20 points above automatic relegation and 14 points above the relegation playoffs.

The Yellow Nation will wrap up their campaign with a home clash against the Hungry Lions at the NMU Madibaz Stadium on Sunday, followed by a final away test against Venda FC.

A win in both matches will propel Sibiya’s team above their ninth-place finish last season, when they finished with 38 points.

Though their promotion hopes for the current season were dashed due to their inconsistencies, the former Umvoti FC coach plans to finish their 2025/2026 league campaign on a high note with their remaining fixtures.

So far, they have won two of their remaining two matches, beating Lerumo Lions 1-0 and Midlands Wanderers 3-1.

After spending two seasons with Highbury and successfully maintaining their MFC status, the coach now looks ahead to the future, hoping to have a solid team next season that will compete for the league title and possible promotion.

“We have already started preparing for next season,” Sibiya said.

“To be honest, there is still a meeting to be held regarding player releases. The technical team and the club’s management will reach an agreement based on the players’ stats.

“Also, based on age, because there are players who were under 23 but will be over 23 now, and we still need five U23 players on the team sheet.”

So, normally, teams will have nine to 10 U23 players in their squad.

“Decisions will still be made because we have not sat down and finalised departures and players who are coming in.

“However, we are well aware of where we need to improve.

“Obviously, we will need goal scorers because we have not scored in some matches, even though we created chances.

“When the time is appropriate, we will make a formal announcement.”

• Meanwhile, following their promotion from the second tier of SA football to the Premiership, Kruger United are now guaranteed R30m over 12 months — one of the perks of being in the elite league.

Why is that? It is because the PSL grants all 16 Premiership teams R2.5m every month, while second-tier outfits only pocket R750,000 allowances — just R9m a year.

Kruger will also get an opportunity to fight for Carling Knockout’s R6.85m prize, where being eliminated in the first round pays R550,000.

The runners-up take home R2.85m, semifinalists get R1.35m, and quarterfinalists earn R850,000.

This competition also rewards the man of the match with a whopping R100,000, and that should motivate Kruger players as well.

Magesi managed to win the Carling Knockout as a newly promoted side in the 2024/2025 season under coach Clinton Larsen, upsetting rampaging Mamelodi Sundowns 2-1 in the final in Bloemfontein.

This should serve as a motivation for the Village Boys that anything is possible in football.

Kruger have already confirmed that they will stick with the coach who promoted them, Abram Mongoya.

This could help a great deal as far as continuity is concerned, but history tells us that keeping a coach after gaining promotion without recruiting smartly is like pouring water into a bucket with holes.

Cape Town Spurs are a good example of this; after earning promotion in the 2023/2024 season, they kept coach Shaun Bartlett but failed to sign suitable players, relying heavily on the promotion-winning squad.

As a result, Spurs were relegated back to the Motsepe Foundation Championship.

Orbit College, who were promoted last season, are staring relegation in the face in the Premiership this season because despite keeping Pogiso Makhoye, the coach who earned them top-flight status, they were not smart in the market, opting to keep the bulk of the promotion-winning squad until they later realised the ship was sinking.

Left with no choice, Orbit later resorted to signing ageing yet experienced free agents in an attempt to rescue their status. — Additional reporting by Sihle Ndebele, Sowetan