The Bafana Bafana brand has become a very big embarrassment such that the ones assigned to wear it as a badge of pride and patriotism shun it as if it were some form of a deadly plague, as Gordon Igesund’s recent player selection predicament has compellingly underlined. Such has been the terminal decline of the fortunes of South Africa’s national football team from swashbuckling continental giants in the late 1990s to current also-runs who can be beaten by nonentities like Ethiopia.
Oddly, the more corporate sponsorship has been lavished on the national team, the less the devotion of the players has become. Logically, it should have been the other way round.
In the 1990s, during the epoch of Doctor Khumalo, Mark Fish, Neil Tovey and illustrious others, once players earned a call up to the national team they were prepared to die in the battle field for their country. In contrast, the current generation treat the national team duty as a picnic, a respite from ‘gruelling’ club commitments, where even their performance is at best pedestrian. With egos inflated by exaggerated praises of their abilities by local soccer scribes, most of them are not bound by any obligation to break a sweat.
In countries that are esteemed powerhouses in the game, highly paid top-notch players – the calibre of Cristiano Ronaldos – would be jostling for an opportunity to showcase their skills playing for the national team. These are decorated individuals who have worn everything that matters but they still desire for more.
So, South Africa’s average players disdain for the national team is startling. Their misuse of a priceless marketing platform for international soccer talent scouts is incomprehensible.
All told, an inquest is imminent, and, if need be, heads should roll. It is high time dignity was permanently restored to Bafana Bafana, one of the sources of national pride. What is it that The Proteas and The Springboks have been doing better that is pitifully lacking in soccer administration?
The root cause starts from the top. It’s the administrative problem. The other thing is that the players’ work ethic is poor. one wonders why in the 1990s when players were earning what can pass for a pittance we were doing remarkably well. was it the euphoria of democracy? but how come the Springboks have sustained the momentum?