Kaizer Chiefs have explained in detail why they have chosen to go to Turkey for their pre-season preparations, with the Soweto giants' tour to that part of the world set to commence on Thursday.
Amakhosi are expected to train and play friendly games against some top Turkish opposition, with it being revealed that they will be spending almost three weeks in that country.
In recent times, the club has been known to prefer local or African destinations as part of their pre-season, but have now taken things a notch higher with a new coaching structure incoming, to be headed by Nasreddine Nabi.
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In fact, this serves as Chiefs' first tour outside of South Africa since 2003 when they participated in the Peace Cup in South Korea, coming up against top teams such as Olympique Lyon of France, Turkish giants Besiktas, and host club, Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma.
Club sporting director Kaizer Motaung Jr. has come out to explain the choice of destination.
"The most crucial aspect of a pre-season camp is to make sure that the team is building team unity and overall mental readiness for the season ahead. These are vital as every top team needs to work together to build its internal strength in order to be prepared for the challenges ahead," he shared, per the Kaizer Chiefs official website.
"More specifically for us, with a new incoming coaching structure, it helps for the new coaching team to have the squad away from their normal environment in order to assess what work must be done and how they need to work going forward together.
"We are looking forward to a very productive preparation process, and we hope the team will be able to focus on the job at hand as we gear towards starting the season very strongly," he adds.
The Glamour Boys' Marketing and Commercial Director, Jessica Motaung, expressed gratitude for the opportunity to prepare Mzansi's most-supported team overseas.
"This gives us an opportunity to promote the Kaizer Chiefs brand outside of the borders of South Africa. We are looking forward to a successful tour and hope it will lead us to winning, as we did when we came back from Korea in 2003," she said.
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It has also been confirmed the team will be based in the cities of Izmit and Istanbul during the course of the tour.