South Africans have every right to feel outraged that Bafana Bafana have been docked three points by Fifa, genuinely endangering their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign.
It is an outrage.
That is not hyperbole. Bafana last qualified for a World Cup other than as hosts in 2002. They were cruising to reaching the 2026 showpiece in North America with a three-point lead and relatively winnable games remaining next month against Rwanda and last-placed Zimbabwe, both to be held in this country.
After the 3-0 win awarded by FIFA to Lesotho, if Benin (14 points and a +4 goal difference) win both their last two games, Bafana (14 and +3) also need to win two, by a lot of goals.
South Africa will take some hope from the fact that Benin’s last two matches are tough – against Rwanda and Nigeria, both away.
After their stellar campaign – the continuation of coach Hugo Broos’ hugely encouraging revival of the national team after two decades of woeful underachievement – Bafana should not have been put in a position of having to take hope in anything.
This campaign was almost sewn up. Now there are factors to consider. That alone, given the context of Bafana being on the first tentative steps of what is hopefully a real comeback to competitiveness in international football, is unforgivable.
South Africans also have every right to expect more accountability on not just this issue, but on the general state of governance and financial stability at the South African Football Association (Safa).
Safa’s tone-deaf response to the loss of points – for fielding Teboho Mokoena in a 2-0 win against Lesotho in Polokwane in March when he should have been suspended for accumulating two yellow cards in previous Group C qualifiers – is of great concern, but it is also in character.
Safa’s response to the error of not picking up Mokoena’s suspended status has resembled ducking and diving from the start.
In June, the association was embarrassingly grilled on the issue in front of parliament’s sports portfolio committee in heated exchanges.
Responding to questions, officials seemed intent on shifting the blame to the Confederation of African Football and FIFA for not sending correspondence on Mokoena’s suspension in the build-up to the Lesotho game. Only when pressed on which official was most responsible would Safa produce the name of controversial team manager Vincent Tseka.
Grilled on how Tseka remained in his position and was not at least suspended, Safa president Danny Jordaan promised that once Fifa acted, so would the association.
“There will be accountability, but we have to wait for all the reports to come in,” Jordaan said.
“If you act against any staff member, they have the right to take up the matter. Our position is clear, we’ll defend the position on the side of what is right, but unfortunately, we cannot do that at this stage.
“We can plead that you give us some space so we can deal with the matter.”
Now, FIFA’s decision has come in, Safa made a somewhat hollow commitment to appealing on a technicality that it was “delivered by a single-member panel without reasons, and without affording the association an opportunity to present legal arguments”.
An apology to the nation was buried near the end of Safa’s statement, where it added it would “reflect on the steps to take”, now no longer after Fifa’s action, but “at the conclusion of our qualifying campaign”.
Let’s try to give Safa the benefit of the doubt, speculatively. Perhaps Tseka, despite once infamously failing to arrange a training venue for Bafana in September 2022, has earned the trust of Broos, and it is the national coach who does not want to disrupt his technical team before next month’s conclusion of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
All right then. But will there be accountability after the October matches? And if there is, why should Tseka be the lone ‘fall guy’? Should this entire episode not serve as a loud call for Safa to clean up its administrative processes which are threatening to derail a revival in South African football, substantially?
South Africans will know better than to hold their breath.
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