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On Stuart Baxter:
The coach will meet with the Safa technical committee this week and give them his report. His report, plus the input from the technical committee, will then be presented to the national executive committee [NEC] meeting in August.
The NEC will then make a collective decision based on the information and recommendations presented to them. His report will be presented together with those of [Under-20] coach Thabo [Senong] and [Banyana] coach Desiree [Ellis].
I personally do not agree with the calls that Safa should fire all three coaches. We have done that for a long time with no positive results. We have mostly fired coaches on returning from continental or global events. That has resulted in the incoming coach having to dismantle the team and start afresh.
We can no longer afford to do that. The technical committee must assist in finding the root cause of our national teams’ problems, suggest solutions and then we implement them. Also, if we change the senior national team coach now, how long will the new one have to prepare for Bafana’s first Afcon qualifier against Ghana in November?
On national teams:
I’m aware that the nation is not happy that all our teams have qualified for their respective global tournaments, but have been knocked out in the first round. Safa shares that frustration.
We cannot just qualify and it ends there. Going forward, we need to find a way of reaching at least the final stages of every tournament we qualify for.
We need to ask ourselves some tough questions, such as: Do we have a big enough pool of players for our national teams? Are our coaches good enough and are they the right people to reach the targets that are set in Safa’s Vision 2022?
We had a good group of players in Egypt [for the Afcon], but I think there were still a number of better players, especially young ones, who were left out. The technical committee must not only look at the coaches, but also the type and quality of players we have.
The big question is about technical leadership: Can they identify the ailments and then suggest to the coaches what must be done? Our clubs also have not done well at CAF competitions, except Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates. It is important for our clubs to participate and do well on the continent. This will have a positive effect on the national team.
Clubs from Egypt, Algeria and Morocco are always in the finals of the CAF Champions League, and, as a result, their national teams do well in CAF competitions.
TP Mazembe and AS Vita from the Democratic Republic of Congo are permanent features in the Champions League. Ivory Coast and Senegal have good relations with France and a sizeable number of their players play in the French Ligue 1 and lower leagues. This is one of the reasons we have forged ties with the Spanish La Liga and we hope it bears fruit soon.
On Safa:
We are now at the end of the first phase of Vision 2022. We need to assess the progress made and look at ways to improve before moving to phase two.
There are some pillars of the programme where we have done well, such as the number of coaches and referees who have been trained. We now also have quite a good number of players spread across different European countries [see box].
The KwaZulu-Natal International Academy, for instance, has a programme through which they tour Portugal every year. Their players are spotted by scouts. It is through such programmes that the country has produced players such as Thabo Cele and Luther Singh (19), who was transferred for about R7 million.
Luther is from the gang-infested Riverlea township [in Johannesburg] and football has given him a break in life. We have also improved our Under-17 and Under-19 provincial tournaments for boys and girls. All these programmes show that Safa has a clear vision for South African football going forward.
We also need to strengthen our revenue streams, which were devastated by the loss of a R110 million broadcast deal with the SABC, whose financial woes are public knowledge. Safa is looking at creative ways of establishing new revenue avenues.
We hope to turn that corner soon.
On CAF:
I do not want to talk about my election yet as I still have to sit down with the president [Ahmad Ahmad] for guidance on CAF’s expectations. I do have some ideas, but I have to wait for his guidance.
I’m happy with decisions made at the recent congress to grow the women’s Afcon, Under-20 and Under-17 sides from eight to 12 teams. The success of the Women’s World Cup [in France] has seen the interest in women’s football grow. For the first time, CAF has 34 nations that have registered for next year’s women’s Afcon tournament.
From Cosafa, we have Swaziland, Namibia, Mauritius, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa set to take part in the tournament.
On calls for resignations:
I find the calls that the entire Safa leadership resign absurd. It happened in Egypt because of the type of government they have, which is different from the one here.
After winning the World Cup as hosts in 1998, France were bundled out in the first round in Korea/Japan in 2002. Italy lifted the World Cup in 2006 in Germany, and lost in the first round in 2010 here. Germany won in 2014 in Brazil and last year in Russia were knocked out in the first round. Cameroon came to Egypt as defending champions but failed to make it past the first round.
But no one called for the en masse resignation of the football association officials of those countries. Why must Safa be treated differently?
On the ‘back door’:
“I don’t understand this thing about Bafana qualifying for the Afcon second round via the ‘back door’. In 24-team tournaments such as the Women’s World Cup, Euro Championships and now the Afcon, you need to add four best-placed third teams to have a Last 16.
At the Euros, it was Slovakia, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Portugal. At the Women’s World Cup, it was China, Brazil, Nigeria and Cameroon. At the Afcon, it was Benin, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.
No one spoke of the back door in all the other instances and, actually, Portugal went on to win the Euros. We need to eradicate this kind of mentality and understand that rules are rules.
