The world is showing us the way, there has to be gatherings, which lead to discussions, considerations, workshops and training, development.
What are we doing? Even when presented with obvious opportunities to regroup and salvage whatever is left of South African national football’s dignity.
That’s why there’s national teams. It’s a gathering of the county’s best players.
Where and why are the leadership and administrative gatherings happening privately to only to decide on votes instead of finding ways to improve our football?
We’ve made these mistakes before with the men’s game back when we were a giant amongst the giants of African football pre-2000.
We rested and assumed things would just continue happening for us.
We’re doing it with the girls now as well. Banyana Banyana is doing well, the next generation of U17s’ journey to the World Cup ended early after an administrative mess around Easter time this year. We were knocked out of the third round by none other than Ethiopia.
These are early warning signs that the leadership should strongly consider before paying themselves bonuses while school girls travel without proper preparations and support in green and gold uniform!
Where is the shame? For many it was a first cap, and their journey at this level ended before it even began. Not all is lost in my view, as these are all school-going kids, which means they could earn their caps through the SA Schools’ Sport system.
SAFA took over the previous SASFA. Create competitions for the girls to make up what they’ve lost in the qualifiers.
We can’t repeat the same mistakes we made when Bafana were doing well. We can’t be thinking Banyana Banyana will miraculously have top players to take over when the next big competitions come after the 2023 World Cup.