Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has challenged his employers, the SA Football Association (Safa), urging it to act with greater professionalism, citing the lack of player scouting and the failure to appoint full-time junior national team coaches as a recipe for disaster in SA football.
The Belgian-born coach highlighted his concerns on Thursday after announcing the squad that will take on Sierra Leone and Botswana in international friendlies next week.
Asked how he was working with former Bafana defender David Nyathi, who was recently appointed by Safa as the chief scout for the national team, an irritated Broos dismissed the question.
“No, no I don’t want to answer that question [on Nyathi] but I think the professional organisation of Safa has to improve a lot because at the moment it’s not professional enough in relation to everything,” said Broos, who took over as Bafana coach in May last year.
Safa have not had permanent Under-23, Under-20 and Under-17 coaches in the last three years, and Broos said this was not helping the association to monitor the young players, including those who have played for the junior teams before.
“You have your Under-23 who played at the (Tokyo) Olympics in July last year and you now have to start searching for players for the Under-23 team because between the Olympics and June, they’ve never been together,” he said of the team coached by David Notoane. It bombed out in the first round in Tokyo without winning a single match against Japan, Mexico and France.
“There was never a camp, there’s never been a game. This is not good. There’s no follow-up because the coach of the Under-23 [Notoane] is working in a club, is working at [Mamelodi] Sundowns.
“How can this guy [Nyathi] alone do the scouting? This is just an example [of where Safa should improve]. We have to professionalise a lot of those things at Safa.”
Broos said he gets astounded when South Africans think they can get results in world football without serious investment in coaches and players. “You know there’s ... [he laughs sarcastically] a colleague who used this expression; he said when you feed nuts you get monkeys. You understand that? It means if you don’t put any effort you can’t have good results. And that’s true [with Safa].
“Results don’t come like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. ‘Oh now we have a coach, oh we have (Pep) Guardiola, oh we’ll win every game’. Forget it. It’s not coming like that [snapping his fingers again]. We need to have results but how can we get that without doing any scouting?”
Hellman Mkhalele, one of the two coaches who are now assistants to Broos, was the last Under-20 coach, while Molefi Ntseki, Broos’s predecessor, was the last permanent mentor for the Under-17s.
So you need a team [of people to scout], not only for Bafana Bafana but for the youth teams, the Under-23s, Under-20s and Under-17s,” said Broos.
Safa have not had permanent Under-23, Under-20 and Under-17 coaches in the last three years
“How long ago did the Under-17s play? Two years ... If you were to play a game now with the Under-17s nobody can give you a team because there’s no one following up [on the players]. Those who were Under-17 are now Under-20 but nobody can tell me where those players are, what are they doing? Are they playing good or bad? Nobody can tell you that.”
Safa’s communications manager Mninawa Ntloko said the issues Broos raised on Thursday were set to be discussed at the Safa national executive committee meeting yesterday. “We’re having an NEC today [yesterday] and a lot of these decisions [on coaches and scouts] will be taken,” he said.
Part of the decisions taken at the Safa meeting yesterday (Saturday) was the appointment of three vice-presidents Linda Zwane, Natasha Tsichlas and Bennett Bailey while Walter Steenbok was named as interim a technical director. Broos’s assistant coach Cedomir Janevski, a Belgian-Macedonian, resigned from his position to take up a head coach duty at Cyprus club AEL Limassol.
Apart from playing Sierra Leone and Botswana, Broos said he had wanted to have another camp or friendly in November as part of preparations for a do-or-die 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Liberia in March.
The Bafana coach said he couldn’t confirm if they’d have a camp or a match in November because the Premier Soccer League (PSL) is yet to respond to a letter in which he requested that they postpone the one-day Carling Black Label Cup set for November 13.
“I’m afraid of the answer I will get [from the PSL]. I really am afraid and this is part of the problem because we’re playing in March and it’s everything or nothing. Liberia are playing a friendly against Egypt in November. Already done, fixed. We’re still waiting to know if we can have a camp.”
PSL acting CEO Mato Madlala wouldn’t be drawn yesterday on how Safa would respond to Broos’s request. “I don’t discuss the issues [of the league] or do interviews on weekends,” she said.
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