This past week was a new low in SA football history and I’m not even talking about the results on the pitch.
The South African Football Association (Safa) sure knows how to spoil a good opportunity, shame.
Here was an opportunity to go wild and get the whole country excited about the return of international football, but what did Safa do?
Let’s start with the launch of the new kit.
I was so happy when I heard Safa had found a new kit sponsor in Le Coq Sportif .
But then they let the new kit sponsor release a low-budget advert of the new kit.
That notorious advert looked like it was produced by a fan for a competition.
That’s what they maybe should’ve done in the first place.
They should’ve made the announcement and asked fans for their input or that fans create their own ads.
Now that would have at least saved this and get people involved which is guaranteed support.
But the damage was done, with some horror reviews.
Then we found out on national television that the new sponsor hadn’t supplied tracksuits or rain jackets.
I’m sure you guys all saw those Nike rain jackets with the taped-over logo.
Are you telling me there was no other way this could’ve been handled?
Why didn’t they step out in the new sponsors’ merchandise?
Kanti, who made this deal? Who is to blame for this mess?
And that’s what really eats me up ouens, our national association doesn’t take us seriously.
I’m close to straight-up telling them they can keep their national teams and they can watch them play with their friends and family for support going forward.
But I can’t do that because the players and coach have nothing to do with those stuff-ups.
What was happening on the pitch was just as shocking.
The guys drew 1-1 against Namibia in their first of two friendlies last Thursday and then lost 2-1 to Zambia on the weekend.
Who do we blame? A lot of people are talking about coach Molefi Ntseki.
The guy has only coached a handful of Bafana matches, yet there are people calling for his head.
What’s been very clear to me is that a lot of fans don’t know him and all that he has done to be where he is.
It’s OK to not know some things, I for one don’t know enough about all that is going on in the world either.
But I’ve given this situation some real thought and there’s a real opportunity here for SA football through Ntseki.
We wanted continuity, and it doesn’t come more straightforward than Ntseki.
This man has long been in the Safa setup and has worked with most of the good players under the age of 25 in this country.
Some of you don’t even know that he was right here at the Bayhill and won the thing.
Ntseki has been to the World Cup as both head coach and assistant coach of the various SA youth teams – we need to respect him and watch what we say about each other.
Leave the coach.
We tend to hide when it’s time to criticise players, maybe because most of us are fans or kanjani? Admit it!
It’s really easy to blame the coach when you don’t know him.
It’s easy because he is not a jita from your kasi or didn’t or doesn’t play for our favourite team, so now you feel entitled to say whatever and however about him and not the players!
We must really be careful how we treat guys our very own guys.
We did this with Bra Pitso Mosimane, but we don’t seem to want to learn from our own mistakes as fans.
Our players need to grow up and step up when they have the jersey on.
This is a sport, it’s competition, you don’t win without effort or even extra effort when needed.