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BAFANA Bafana has crashed out of yet another major soccer tournament. Which yet again was hosted in South Africa.
This time it was the African Nations Championship tournament and the venue was a packed Cape Town stadium. The opponent was Nigeria, a country currently undergoing political turmoil with President Goodluck Jonathan firing his military high command just last week.
Another team in the pool was Mali, a country rocked by a coup d'état in 2012 that led to a bloody and full-scale military invasion in 2013 to bring about regime change.
Bafana couldn’t beat either team and scraped by against the third country in the pool, Mozambique – a country that is itself struggling to make ends meet and where the main opposition party Renamo tore up the country’s 1992 peace deal only months ago. These are the countries Africa’s strongest economic and political power played against.
It’s not the first time Bafana does so badly, either.
In February 2013 Bafana Bafana crashed out in the first round of the Afcon tournament, and in June last year the team failed to qualify for this year’s soccer world cup to be held in Brazil.
This means the host of the previous world cup will not be playing at this year’s event.
Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula has called the national side a “bunch of losers”.
“A bunch of unbearable, useless individuals,” Mbalula said at a press conference.
That's a bit harsh perhaps. After all, surely as sports minister surely Mbalula also has some responsibility?
South African Football Association (Safa) boss Danny Jordaan believes SA soccer needs a new name, new colours and a new technical team to turn around. Really? That’s not just shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic, that’s moving the cushions on the deck chairs of the Titanic.
The real problem with football in South Africa is at grassroots level. An old chestnut - but that’s where the trouble lies. One analyst made the comment that the youngest player Bafana had on the field against Nigeria was 24. Nigeria fielded eight players younger than that.
And all the administrators and politicians are responsible for this - something that can only be called an absolute failure of development meant to lead to a proper football team in South Africa.
One only needs to look at what rugby is doing to develop – including in many underprivileged sectors of the country. The game has annual sporting weeks for schools, Craven Week and Grant Khomo Week, that are the envy of other countries.
Talent scouts flock to these tournaments, and schools across the country do their utmost to get their kids into the provincial teams that compete there. The national squad, the Springboks, have won two world cups and is the number two team in the world at the moment. That's clearly reaping the benefits.
What does football have in comparison, besides a national under 13 and u/15 league launched in April 2013? Not much, as far as I can tell.
So what are football bosses doing to address football in South Africa? Appoint coaches and pay them a heck of a lot of money.
Gordon Igesund, Bafana’s current coach, is reportedly earning between R400 000 and R500 000 per month. His predecessor Pitso Mosimane was reportedly getting double that.
Carlos Perreira, Bafana’s coach during the Soccer World Cup in 2010, was getting R1.8m per month. The team - playing at home - didn’t progress past the first round phase.
And there is money for development. After the 2010 tournament, the 2010 Fifa World Cup Legacy Trust was established by Fifa and Safa to promote and extend the development and reach of football in South Africa.
Fifa then transferred R450m into the Legacy Trust account - that’s half a billion rand.
The main objective of the fund was to ensure quality development of football in South Africa. How much of that money has been spent and on what? I would love to know.
One rumour was that a lot of the money was spent on the purchase of 27 new Mercedes-Benz cars.
This type of spending pattern contributed to Safa's financial statements recently showing a loss of R55m for the year. And South Africa’s domestic football league is supposedly the richest on the contnent?
Is it any wonder sponsors like Castle, Absa and Puma have reportedly been slashing their sponsorship deals with Safa or considering pulling out altogether?
And is it any wonder diehard fans and even players are more loyal to club football teams like Pirates and Chiefs than to the the national side?
I think not.
- Fin24
*Follow James-Brent Styan on Twitter at @jamesstyan. Views expressed are his own.
@jamesstyan
This time it was the African Nations Championship tournament and the venue was a packed Cape Town stadium. The opponent was Nigeria, a country currently undergoing political turmoil with President Goodluck Jonathan firing his military high command just last week.
Another team in the pool was Mali, a country rocked by a coup d'état in 2012 that led to a bloody and full-scale military invasion in 2013 to bring about regime change.
Bafana couldn’t beat either team and scraped by against the third country in the pool, Mozambique – a country that is itself struggling to make ends meet and where the main opposition party Renamo tore up the country’s 1992 peace deal only months ago. These are the countries Africa’s strongest economic and political power played against.
It’s not the first time Bafana does so badly, either.
In February 2013 Bafana Bafana crashed out in the first round of the Afcon tournament, and in June last year the team failed to qualify for this year’s soccer world cup to be held in Brazil.
This means the host of the previous world cup will not be playing at this year’s event.
Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula has called the national side a “bunch of losers”.
“A bunch of unbearable, useless individuals,” Mbalula said at a press conference.
That's a bit harsh perhaps. After all, surely as sports minister surely Mbalula also has some responsibility?
South African Football Association (Safa) boss Danny Jordaan believes SA soccer needs a new name, new colours and a new technical team to turn around. Really? That’s not just shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic, that’s moving the cushions on the deck chairs of the Titanic.
The real problem with football in South Africa is at grassroots level. An old chestnut - but that’s where the trouble lies. One analyst made the comment that the youngest player Bafana had on the field against Nigeria was 24. Nigeria fielded eight players younger than that.
And all the administrators and politicians are responsible for this - something that can only be called an absolute failure of development meant to lead to a proper football team in South Africa.
One only needs to look at what rugby is doing to develop – including in many underprivileged sectors of the country. The game has annual sporting weeks for schools, Craven Week and Grant Khomo Week, that are the envy of other countries.
Talent scouts flock to these tournaments, and schools across the country do their utmost to get their kids into the provincial teams that compete there. The national squad, the Springboks, have won two world cups and is the number two team in the world at the moment. That's clearly reaping the benefits.
What does football have in comparison, besides a national under 13 and u/15 league launched in April 2013? Not much, as far as I can tell.
So what are football bosses doing to address football in South Africa? Appoint coaches and pay them a heck of a lot of money.
Gordon Igesund, Bafana’s current coach, is reportedly earning between R400 000 and R500 000 per month. His predecessor Pitso Mosimane was reportedly getting double that.
Carlos Perreira, Bafana’s coach during the Soccer World Cup in 2010, was getting R1.8m per month. The team - playing at home - didn’t progress past the first round phase.
And there is money for development. After the 2010 tournament, the 2010 Fifa World Cup Legacy Trust was established by Fifa and Safa to promote and extend the development and reach of football in South Africa.
Fifa then transferred R450m into the Legacy Trust account - that’s half a billion rand.
The main objective of the fund was to ensure quality development of football in South Africa. How much of that money has been spent and on what? I would love to know.
One rumour was that a lot of the money was spent on the purchase of 27 new Mercedes-Benz cars.
This type of spending pattern contributed to Safa's financial statements recently showing a loss of R55m for the year. And South Africa’s domestic football league is supposedly the richest on the contnent?
Is it any wonder sponsors like Castle, Absa and Puma have reportedly been slashing their sponsorship deals with Safa or considering pulling out altogether?
And is it any wonder diehard fans and even players are more loyal to club football teams like Pirates and Chiefs than to the the national side?
I think not.
- Fin24
*Follow James-Brent Styan on Twitter at @jamesstyan. Views expressed are his own.
@jamesstyan
