Check here, I didn’t get this column to bring negative energy all the time about South African football, but the SA football fat cats give me no choice, mfowethu.
Three years ago, Safa announced a partnership with SAA.
They explained that it was a value-in-kind sponsorship for Bafana Bafana but would “allow Safa to spread the benefits across to all national teams”.
So here we are, three SA national teams are going to international tournaments this year, but not even a single person at Safa or SAA has thought to make lekker flight specials or work on some combo deals for fans for at these tournaments.
Honestly, how many South Africans do you know that have Poland on their bucket list as a possible place to visit?
OFF TO EGYPT: Bafana are going to Afcon (team yet to be announced). Photo: Itumeleng English/ANA.
Well, that’s where Amajita are going in May to play the U20 World Cup.
So obviously, we need a bit of help with travelling information, I mean very little English is spoken in Poland, I can’t imagine they know much Afrikaans or Xhosa neither, so one can’t just take a chance hoping there’s a place they can buy a lekker gatsby or tshisa nyama.
There’s also the Women’s World Cup, which will be played in France in June.
The euro is currently about R15, so a special price to France and back with Banyana would be more than welcomed here.
Then there’s the Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt.
What are you going to do when you can’t read the signs all over the streets of Egypt?
One of SAA’s values is “Customer Focused: Striving to meet the unique needs of our customers (internal and external) by tailoring each interaction to suit their needs”.
Meanwhile, Safa’s Mission Statement has Vision 2022 which is focused on football development but nothing that is fan-centered.
Perhaps that is why Safa keeps scoring own goals when it comes to getting its message through to the public or garnering support for its various activities and national matches.
Maybe they even like it that way, then they don’t have to account for anything to the public and they are counting on us to continue supporting Safa teams blindly.
We need information so we can make plans.
DESERVE MUCH BETTER: Loyal Bafana fans sing with joy. Photo: Brenton Geach.
We are fans and some of us are even family to some of the national players.
It would be amazing to be there to see our people in action.
This can only happen if the fat cats in those Safa offices wake up and start putting plans into action.
Enough with the fancy words in fancy suits; we need plans and proper communication of those plans so that we know what we are spending our precious money and time on.