A delighted coach Miguel Cardoso wins his first Betway Premiership championship in a little more than six months in charge of Masandawana. Photo: Sipho Siso

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Perennial league winners Mamelodi Sundowns has done it again as the club smiles all the way to the bank with the biggest payday cheque of R20 million after annexing the inaugural Betway Premiership trophy.

The ‘Yellow Machine’ was crowned champions of the premiership for eighth time in a row, guaranteeing the side another shot at the Caf Champions League while awaiting to play the 2025 final of the competition against Egyptian side Pyramids FC, with the first leg scheduled for May 24.

If they annex this one as well, the Tshwane outfit will become the African continental champions and will earn its second star after close to a decade of trial and error after winning the initial one back in 2016.

A continental football powerhouse, Masandawana is also 2024 champions of the continental African Football League (AFL) and are poised to play in the Fifa Club World Cup later in the year, in the hope of conquering the world for the first time ever.

Former Bafana Bafana African Cup of Nations winning side of 1996 and Kaizer Chiefs midfield kingpin Doctor Khumalo was full of praises for the Brazilians, as Sundowns are known to avid fans for the colour of their jersey that resembles the Brazilian national team, saying the team has proved beyond reasonable doubt that it is a football side to be reckoned with both in South Africa and continentally.

“I don’t know how they manage this, winning the league eight times in a row, and smashing records and becoming the only club to have won the league 15 times in the history of the Premier Soccer League.

“I take my hat off for them,” Khumalo said during the live analysis of the team’s final game against Magesi FC in which the side was officially crowned champions with the brand-new trophy handover after it was given the right to own the previous trophy for life after winning it seven times in a row.

Khumalo added it was no wonder that team is so successful as it holds a record technical staff of 22. “It’s one of the best managed teams in the continent and they have been playing football inside out and non-stop for the past decade, juggling the team’s time between the domestic league and Caf Champions League football, and also AFL and still managed to win the league a record eight times in a row,” Khumalo said.

Masandawana head coach and Portuguese national Miguel Cardoso said juggling all these domestic games with continental football and now Fifa Club World Cup is a tough act to follow but this is the way many leagues around the world are going.

“We hope to do our best under the circumstances as playing football is what we know and do best. Our break of the season will too short as we must start preparations for the Fifa Club World Cup and also complete the Caf Champions League final,” Cardoso said.