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Editorial: Time for Safa to play the ball again

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Danny Jordaan
Danny Jordaan

The state of the country’s football has deteriorated to unacceptable levels.

And those who are in charge of the most loved sport in the country continue as if nothing is wrong.

They’d rather fight over power than make sure they get the basics right.

This leads to the question about whether the fighting is over their desire to serve football or to control the resources?

We always thought running the sport was about passion and a way of giving back and not being in it for money or personal glory.

Do these administrators have the nation’s interest at heart?

In the past few weeks wrangling by football administrators was over who should be elected to lead Safa, the sport’s controlling body.

Current boss Danny Jordaan was facing former referee Ace Ncobo for the top job until the elections last Saturday were postponed pending further notice.

The fact is that football is in deep crisis. The country’s premium team Bafana Bafana have failed to make meaningful strides in the world and the continent.

They failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup in Russia and were not part of last year’s CAF Africa Cup of Nations’ finals in Gabon.

We sit in 76th place on the Fifa rankings, below Syria and Palestine.

Instead of recognising this state of emergency for what it is, football leaders are engaging in ugly wars for positions.

The animosity is as bad as that of the governing party’s factions in the run-up to the national elective conference in Nasrec last year.

And, just like in the governing party, the outcome of the election will only lay the ground for resistance by the losers – who will immediately begin plotting against the victors.

Safa needs to get out of its permanent state of war in which leaders are either plotting or looking over their shoulders.

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