A new face for the Telkom Charity Cup

The tournament's new voice has been rallying support amongst South Africa's soccer-loving public, encouraging them to vote for their favourite PSL team to compete in the popular charity tournament.

Comments HerdBuoys SP Managing Director, Wayne Parry, "Whilst the Charity Cup has grown in popularity and support since Telkom took over the sponsorship in 2000, we wanted to put a face to the event and add a human dimension to it. Since this is the only soccer tournament in which the public get to vote for the teams they would like to see participate, we wanted someone who would motivate people to vote and, thinking along the lines of an election, we came up with Charity Cup Charlie as our campaign manager."

Charlie dressed in loud Telkom green and blue candy-striped outfit complete with a large floppy hat and bow-tie, appears on the SABC's Laduma every Saturday and Sunday in the build-up to the Charity Cup tournament on the 31st July. The larger-than-life character enthuses about the tournament and inspires viewers to vote for their favourite PSL team with the slogan "Vote for the love or your team!"

The real person underneath Charity Cup Charlie's character, Kid Sithole, was selected out of more than 40 hopefuls largely because of his passion and enthusiasm both for the character of Charlie and for soccer. Adds Parry, "Kid is also very serious about charity and, as the main incentive of this tournament is obviously the charities that benefit from it, it became natural for him to be motivated and excited about the character and the role he has to play in getting the public to cast their votes."

Charity Cup Charlie will make appearances at the Bafana Bafana African Cup of Nations qualifying game early this month and soccer fans will get to see him live at the Charity Cup Final at FNB on 31st July.