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Cape Town City eye league glory

Cape Town - Cape Town City FC has landed and the plan from owner John Comitis is clear: this will be a football club for the people that will seek to restore pride to the Cape Town footballing community. 

The club - with a new name and kit - was unveiled at Cape Town Stadium on Wednesday after Comitis bought out Mpumalanga Black Aces at the end of 2015/16. 

Comitis wants the majority of the players who turn out for the club to be from Cape Town, and he wants to provide a platform where local talent in the Western Cape is given a clear path to the top. 

He has appointed former Orlando Pirates coach Eric Tinkler as his manager while 14 players were in Cape Town on Wednesday having relocated from Mpumalanga.

Comitis has also appointed former AmaZulu and Moroka Swallows coach Craig Rosslee as his director of football. 

And, according to Rosslee, City can be expecting to challenge for league honours in about five years time. 

"If we do a Leicester then even better," Rosslee joked.

"If we start to dream, then why not? This was all a dream."

Realistically, Rosslee said the first season would be about City consolidating their place in the PSL. 

That means avoiding relegation first and foremost, while over the next two seasons Rosslee would like to see some youth structures developing at the club. 

In terms of philosophy, Rosslee said that the club would look to be as exciting as possible, but with the right players.

"We have an idea. As John (Comitis) said we want attractive, good football to be played," said Rosslee.

"This is going to take a period of time. Eric (Tinkler) has come in and we’ve seen his model. He’s played the game at the highest level and I think he has the same belief in terms of the way we want to go about things.

"We’ve got to be realistic of the fact that we’ve just launched.

"We can only play the type of football that we want to play if we have those players. It’s not going to be an immediate thing and we have to take confidence from the head coach because he knows who he wants."

With Aces having finished fourth in the league this season, Cape Town City's first game should be against Kaizer Chiefs in the first round of this year's MTN 8. That match is likely to be played at Cape Town Stadium.

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