State of our football address Jan/Feb 2011

SAFA parts ways with Chief Executive Officer Lesley Sedibe “following an agreement by both parties” and Pinky Lehoko has been appointed as the acting CEO while SAFA will be conducting interviews trying to find a suitable candidate for the post.

Sedibe was on a 12 month contract with SAFA which ended sometime early January and he agreed to stay in SAFA offices until end of January 2011(what a good guy) and he apparently did a wonderful job in the office but... if he was such a star, why is SAFA not keeping him in the office permanently?

Well he (Sedibe) recons that ‘some people’ were setting him up to fail, a report from Sowetan says he left frustrated because of the happenings behind the scenes at SAFA house, saying some people were talking bad things about him. As to whom those people are and why would they do so is a mystery.

It looks like there are shady characters in SAFA.

While on that, one man who believes SAFA is not playing fair is Zambia’s Kalusha Bwalya, accusing SAFA of using under hand tactics during their (SAFA) saga with Burkina Faso regarding the FIFA’s International friendly fixture that was scheduled for 10 February which lead to South Africa snatching Zambia’s opponent Kenya.

The boring 12 years marriage of SAFA and Adidas has ended and Puma is seemingly the rescuer of our national teams, hehehe... football lovers are not happy about Puma from what I have observed and everyone is waiting in anticipation to see what Puma has in stores for Bafana Bafana before the hostility starts, since no one has seen the new Bafana Bafana kit sponsored by Puma that they were supposed to be wearing on their game with Burkina Faso (now Kenya).

Lesley Sedibe said (last month) the reason for the delay was caused by negotiations with the Department of Sports and Recreation in regard to the use of the Protea emblem which they have sorted out, it is now about a month since that but we haven’t seen the kit and allegedly Bafana will be playing against Kenya wearing an Adidas kit.

When I first heard this I thought it was a joke, but Kirsten Nemathendani’s serious face made me realise that it was indeed truth. I’d like to know what the arrangement is between SAFA and Adidas about this because SAFA-Adidas contract ended in December last year and it did not end pretty.

Strange enough, the reason for SAFA and Adidas fallout was because of Bafana Bafana replicas being sold without the Proteas emblem which Molefi Oliphant had instructed Adidas not to use because he was trying to cut the cost by not paying royalties to the Department of Sports and Recreation which were in the region of R100,000 per year.

Trying to cut cost... Money, Money, Money, money...

Now SAFA has announced that they are going to rename Bafana Bafana so that they can generate revenue whenever the new nickname of the senior boys is in use. I wonder what they are going to call it. One man who will be happy about this will be our former president Mr. Thabo Mbheki and I think SAFA should consult him when they discuss the name because he had beef with the national team being called Bafana Bafana.

SAFA is still negotiating Bafana Bafana broadcasting rights and while the negotiations are still going on, SABC doesn’t show any sign of changing their attitude about Bafana matches, because 1 problem from the public was that Bafana matches are playing second fiddle to the popular soapie Generations and SABC has decided again to flight Bafana Bafana vs.

Kenya match at 20h30 which is straight after Generations. I wonder if SAFA’s big shots will decide to take Bafana matches away from SABC or not. SABC is poking them in the eye, really.

Enough with men in suits and ties who sit behind desks at SAFA house, let’s run in the field.

Coach Pitso Mosimane has decided to drop Teko Modise and Katlego Mphela but he still has Kagiso Dikgacoi and Bernard Parker yet he claims that he does not select fringe players. Where is consistency in your side Mr. Mosimane? I mean Dikgacoi has not played a single minute of club football in... Let me see...in over 8 months, Mphela has only been boycotting participation in his team Sundowns for the past 2-3 weeks, who is fitter than the other here, Mphela or Dikgacoi? It is the similar story with Parker and Teko.

Yes Davide Somma is doing wonders in his team (Leeds United) but he has only played for Bafana Bafana once, so why is Pitso taking the entire goal scoring burden onto his shoulders? Since we are preparing for our encounter with Egypt next month with this friendly match against Kenya, it would have been a wise move for Mr. Jingle to try Mphela-Somma combination again to see if it could work for him.

Remember Nassief Morris? Eish! Old age... I’m waiting for him to say he retires from international football; Macbeth Sibaya is another one whom I’m waiting for his resignation.

Amaglug-glug and Angola match for 2011’s All Africa Games qualifiers is finally going to be played on Friday in Angola, the match was originally scheduled for 9th January but because RSA was included in this competition via questionable ways after the blunder by men in suits and ties who sit behind desks at SAFA house. I so hope that our under-23 team will win because if not, this would have been a useless exercise.

I wonder if Kalusha Bwalya will use this as another reason to justify his opinions about SAFA.

By Mokete Sethunya (Kiddo Snr)