PSL Start Date: Is This The Latest Start To A PSL Season?

With the dates for the 2024 MTN fixtures announced, local football fans are eagerly anticipating watching their favorite teams and players. While the PSL has taken ages to release fixtures, the last week of July is usually the norm. Fixtures were confirmed on 29 July last year, 22 July in 2022, and 26 July at the start of the 2021/22 season. League fixtures are yet to be finalized, but the dates, venues, and teams for the MTN8 are set in stone. We’ve looked at the schedule to analyse the fixture and discovered that while this will be one of the latest starts to a league season, it is also one of the earliest for the MTN8.

Is It Normal For The MTN To Kick Off Before The League?

The MTN8 is the first knockout trophy of the PSL season, and in 2024 will kick off before the league (mid-September). It is not the first time this has happened, and the norm is actually for the Top 8 to start before the league. In the 24 PSL seasons where the Top8 has been played, the tournament started before the league 16 times, and after the league on eight occasions. What is unusual is the length of days between the start of the two competitions (42). However, should the final also be played before the league starts, it would represent the first time that the Top8 will be started and completed before league action resumes.

Is This The Earliest Start To A Season?

Only once before in the 16-team PSL era has the domestic season started earlier than the 3 August scheduled for this season? Coincidentally, it was exactly 10 years ago that the MTN8 quarter-finals were played as early as the 1st of August. Gavin Hunt was Wit’s coach then, and they needed a penalty shootout to beat Bloemfontein Celtic after a 0-0 draw. Ten years later, Hunt will be SuperSport’s coach when they take on Pirates on the 3rd of August. Beyond that, you have to go back to July 2000 for the earliest ever season start and the only time the Top 8 began in July.

What Is The Latest Start To A PSL Season?

On the other hand, the 2020/21 season holds the record for the latest date for the Top 8 to be played. It’s also the latest that a league season has ever started. This campaign was initiated immediately following the Covid-affected 2019/20 season that ended in September. Two seasons ago, the first Top8 game was played on 27 August, which is the second latest start for the tournament. Only one other season (2016/17) saw the Top 8 kick off in the final week of August (26 August 2016).

What Is The Biggest Gap Between Seasons?

The league is only scheduled to start on the 14th of September, meaning there will be nearly 4 months between the final league game of the previous season and the first league game of the following season. While a gap this long under normal circumstances is unprecedented, it is still not a record. The record for the longest gap between league seasons is 174 days, following the 2010 World Cup. Back then, the league finished as early as March, as the nation prepared to host visitors and teams for Africa’s first-ever World Cup. Only five seasons have seen a gap of 100+ days between the end of the previous season and the start of the new one.

The shortest gap between seasons came in 1997, with 47 days from the end of the inaugural PSL season and the start of 1997/98. It was a shorter turnaround than the end of the Covid-hit 2019/20 season and the start of 2020/21.