Football in South Africa draws follows the example of their former colonial masters of Great Britain with the format, set-up and administration of the game in line with the world's oldest football association, the English FA. South Africa's ties with British football stretch back more than a century and consequently there are many similarities.

The administration of the game in South Africa is divided into two branches. The South African Football Association (SAFA) oversees the country's national teams and the amateur game. It also keeps a custodial eye on the sport as the ruling body of football in the country. Its highest profile affiliate is the Premier Soccer League (PSL), whose lion-like logo reveals a copycat relationship with its English counterpart.

South Africa's PSL runs the professional game with a high degree of autonomy, commanding millions in television, marketing and sponsorship revenues. It also draws massive interest from within the country and, indeed, the southern African region. The PSL provide one of the SAFA's vice-presidents and several members of its Executive Committee.

It is from the ranks of this league, too, that most of the country's stars have been nurtured. Almost every South African international over the last 15 years has begun his career with a club in the PSL.

A game for all
However, the bedrock of the game, like almost everywhere else in the world, is with the amateurs, who fill parks, dusty strips and hillside pitches across the country every day.

In South Africa, there is not the extensive licensing system that is to be found in many European countries and as a result the number of players competing regularly in men's, women's and youth football is not accurately known.

SAFA claims a total of 1.8 million registered players, but the actual number is likely to be more than double that amount. Football has long been the most popular game with the majority of South African citizens, although rugby union was declared as the national sport in the apartheid era.

SAFA is made up of 52 different regional affiliates, cut across the nine provinces of the country. Each association is entitled to a vote at the annual general meeting. The association also has affiliate members such as women's clubs, university and secondary schools, Futsal teams, coaches and sports medical practitioners' associations.

Three become one in 1991
The South African Football Association's current composition comes in the wake of the unification of three separately racially constituted organisations in 1991.

The association's executive committee has 24 members drawn from provincial affiliates and from members of the PSL. There is also a place on the committee for Danny Jordaan, who is the chief executive officer of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa ™ Local Organising Committee.

The PSL is made up of 16 members who play in the top flight and a further 16 from the first division, known as the Mvela Golden League. It has an eight member executive committee.

The third and fourth tiers of South African football are split into regional groups, because of the vast distances across the country.

There is automatic promotion between the PSL and the top ranks of the amateur game in the country, so clubs are able to climb from obscurity to the upper echelons of professional sport.

Most clubs in South Africa are owned by rich entrepreneurs in a franchise system and are consequently able to be sold, as is the case in American sport.

It is therefore not uncommon to see, notably at the lower levels, clubs moving from one locale to another and undergoing a complete change of identity.