DID you know that Itumeleng Khune bought his first property at age 20?
It was in 2007 when Khune invested his entire loot from the Telkom Knockout Cup proceedings to buy his first house after Kaizer Chiefs defeated Mamelodi Sundowns 1-0 in the final on 1 December.
And this has been the growing trend for Khune (35) 15-years down the line, as he invests in the property development to prepare for life after football.
Speaking to SunSport, Khune admitted that not all former players will be coaches, and not all will be TV or radio analysts, but you have to mould your future at an early age.
“I bought my first property with the prize money that I got from the Telkom Knockout... that’s where my entire money went to,” revealed Khune who is also a graduate of the inaugural PSL and MultiChoice Player Transition Programme.
This is a programme that empowers soccer players into becoming business people at an early age, and it arms them with all the relevant tools, a programme run through the Gordon Institute of Business Science, an affiliate of the University of Pretoria.
Khune explainws further: “I used the money to pay deposit. Fortunately, it was a brand new house in a development area which didn’t require transfer costs and legal fees.
“When you start early then you develop a habit of continuing to do rights things and make wiser decisions. When you leave it up until later, then it becomes a problem because you’ve already developed bad habits.”
Khune advised young players to share their first pay cheque with their parents or guardians in order to get their blessings, “and plan your future correctly by investing as early as possible”.
Khune seems to have taken a lot of advises from PSL chairman, Irvin Khoza, on how to conduct himself as a player, and what steps to take in order to live happily after football.
“Dr Khoza mentioned fact that when he signed Stiga Fredericks at Orlando Pirates, he first asked him ‘did you buy property?’” said Khune.
“I would like to encourage the young ones to say, even not (specifically) property, but they need to start something for their future, and start now.
“There’s a lot of business ideas and opportunities, we just need to dig deeper into our thoughts and discover what is that we’re good at, which will sustain us during rainy days.
“As elders in the industry, we try by all means to encourage all the young players to invest their first contracts – some listen and others won’t because they’re still young and have a long life ahead of them.”
He admitted that he is headed towards retirement age and the PSL-MultiChoice programme came at the right time for him.
He said: “The programme means a lot to me. It prepared me for my future after football. I am going towards retirement, so when I’ve heard about the programme then I was one of the first to say: I’ll take the opportunity to use it to my advantage.
“I’m happy that through all the challenges that we’ve had and being at camps then we were able to give ourselves time to log on for three hours and there’s a lot that we’ve learnt, and a lot that we thought we knew, but with the programme it gave us a different perspective.”
Khune is in the middle of his goalkeeping courses where he said he’s arming himself just in case he retires early.
