The 2025/26 Betway Premiership Awards were less a celebration of individual brilliance and more a coronation of the status quo, where Orlando Pirates’ clean sweep of the major honours—including Player of the Season, Coach of the Season, and Young Player of the Season—was both technically justified and deeply troubling for the league’s health.
Let’s be clear: Monnapule Saleng deserved his Player of the Season nod after a campaign that saw him rack up 12 goals and nine assists, while Jose Riveiro’s tactical overhaul turned the Buccaneers into a relentless pressing machine that conceded only 14 league goals. Evidence was everywhere—Pirates won the league with five games to spare, dismantling Mamelodi Sundowns 3-0 at Loftus and grinding out gritty 1-0 wins at struggling Cape Town Spurs. The individual performances were undeniable. Yet that is precisely the problem. When one club monopolises accolades, it doesn’t reflect a meritocracy; it reflects a hierarchy so rigid that mediocrity elsewhere is rewarded with silence. Look at the nominees: aside from Pirates, only Sundowns’ Teboho Mokoena and Kaizer Chiefs’ Ashley Du Preez scraped mentions. The rest of the league—Stellenbosch, SuperSport United, even a resurgent Polokwane City—produced players who influenced matches but were never in the conversation because their clubs lacked the marketing machinery or silverware pedigree to push narratives. The awards, in effect, became a Pirates-branded ceremony.
The implication for the Betway Premiership is corrosive. When the same three clubs—Pirates, Sundowns, Chiefs—hoard trophies and podium spots season after season, the league risks becoming a content loop rather than a competitive ecosystem. Younger sides like Richards Bay or Royal AM generate moments of intrigue—Thabang Matuludi’s midfield masterclass against Sundowns in February, or Sekhukhune United’s shock Nedbank Cup run—but those flashpoints never translate into sustained contention because the financial and scouting disparities are too vast. The awards merely codify that imbalance. A goalkeeper from a bottom-half side can save 80 percent of shots faced and still not earn a nomination because his team finished 12th. Meanwhile, a Pirates fullback with three assists gets a nod because his club won the title. That logic hollows out the meaning of “best in the league” and turns the ceremony into a rerun of September’s transfer window hype.
If the Betway Premiership truly wants to grow its global credibility, the awards must stop being a victory lap for the same commercial powers. The real verdict is uncomfortable but necessary: until the league enforces meaningful squad-cost caps or introduces a revenue-sharing model that lifts the floor, next year’s ceremony will feature the same colours, the same players, and the same hollow applause. Pirates will collect their medals again, and the rest of the Betway Premiership will watch from the shadows—content, predictable, and stagnant.