I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – coaching in South African football is a massive problem.
At the launch of the South African Football Association’s Vision 2022, there was to be a huge and concerted push to get coaches qualified in order to make a difference at both professional and grassroots level.
With coaches being upskilled, there was supposed to be a giant leap forward on technical and tactical fronts for our football.
But that’s not been the case – one only has to look at Safa’s handling of former Bafana Bafana coach Molefi Ntseki in the last three months.
They basically groomed Ntseki to be an international-level mentor over the years that he coached the national youth teams and assisted his predecessor Stuart Baxter.
Following this week’s news that a plan to bring him back as an assistant coach to new man Hugo Broos had collapsed, Safa also revealed that they are worried about the qualifications of coaches in Mzansi.
Let me be clear before I go on. I’m not saying that Ntseki is not qualified, I’m just looking at what Safa might find as acceptable.
After a planned nationwide survey of coaches trained by Safa, the feedback laid bare just what kind of a mess SA football is in.
A Safa statement said: “While we received appreciable responses, it has been realised that a large number of coaches did not respond to the survey.
“As a result, we have many coaches who are not accounted for and this raises serious concerns about the continued training of coaches without having a clear record of their work and its impact in the development of the game in South Africa in line with the goal of Vision 2022.”
Now mense, if that doesn’t shock you, nothing will.