Premier Soccer League Ranked Among Worst Leagues on the Planet for Promoting Young Players

• Despite boasting the highly successful Diski Challenge, the Premier Soccer League has been ranked among the worst leagues on earth when it comes to promoting young players
• This was revealed in a report by the CIES Football Observatory, which had observed the career trajectories of under-21 players worldwide
• The criteria were taking 60 leagues across the planet and monitoring the number of minutes these players got to play

A new report has revealed that the DStv Premiership is among the worst leagues in the world when it comes to providing opportunities for young footballers.

This week, the CIES Football Observatory released the latest statistics on U21 footballers around the world in a report that has revealed which leagues afford the most – and the least – opportunities to young players.

As reported in KickOff, the criteria for the report was determined by "ranking 60 leagues worldwide according to the percentage of minutes played by U21 players since the 1st of January 2021."

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Venezuela's Primera División emerged at the top of the list with an impressive 18.8% of the overall minutes on the pitch being played by U21 footballers, ahead of Denmark's Superliga, which returned a figure of 16.5%.

South Africa's DStv Premiership, meanwhile, ranked among the worst leagues for the development of precocious talents, with only five other divisions ranking worse than the league in respect of the game time afforded to U21 players.

Per the report, only 3.2% of the overall game time played this season came in form of age-group level players, which is the sixth-worst overall, and the second-worst on the African continent, behind only the Egyptian Premier League.

The average age of players used frequently in the PSL is 28.3 years old, which is also the joint-10th oldest of the 60 established top-flight competitions that formed part of the study.

DStv Diski Challenge wrap: Another twist in title race as Stellenbosch FC moves to top with Pirates choking

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As reported on Sports Brief, there was another twist in an already tense DStv Diski Challenge title race between Orlando Pirates and Stellenbosch Football Club.

The Maroons - the highest-scoring team in the league - moved to the top of the log after a thumping win over Chippa United.

Orlando Pirates, on the other hand, collapsed against Maritzburg United to surrender top spot.