Professionalise women’s football in South Africa - Shilene Booysen

In recent times, many football personalities and pundits have pushed for the Hollywoodbets Super League to go professional so the league can grow.

Formerly with Houston Dash in the USA and also with the South Sudan Senior Women’s National team, Booysen is now based in Egypt where she is the head coach of Wadi Degla Women in the Premier League.

She says South Africa needs to make a step up.

"We need to get to the stage where we go professional because you know if we have players that still have to go to school, still have to go to university, still have to work in order to play football it almost stifles the growth of the game and I think that has been our biggest problem. I feel like we should be making the next step which is establishing a professional league for players to earn a living wage from playing football," Booysen said.

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Booysen, who is an ardent follower of the Hollywoodbets Super League, says she was impressed by how JVW and UWC stole points from reigning champions Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies, adding that it was a clear indication that Sundowns Ladies can be beaten.

She adds that other teams must take a leaf from JVW and UWC, and not give the Brazilians too much respect.

"I think that is something we can learn from. It is not so much looking and saying, okay but they have more money than us, they have more players than us but it is about saying that, okay they are going to put these players on to the field and how can we stop those players because at the end of the day, it is still 11 versus 11 and I think that’s what we need to look at. You can respect Sundowns but you can still challenge them," Booysen added.