Trust the palookas at Safa to do everything in their power to be that proverbial fly in the ointment even if there is no need for any such drama.
Our national football teams have been doing pretty well despite the incompetent lot marching to failed mayor Danny Jordaan’s drumbeat at Safa.
Bafana Bafana, the senior men’s team, have been emulating Banyana Banyana, making a habit of winning, topped last year by the podium finish at the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Côte d’Ivoire.
Banyana famously won the Women’s Afcon in Morocco in 2022 and, for good measure, qualified for the Fifa Women’s World Cup Down Under, where they gave a good account of themselves, slaying more fancied opposition.
They had raised the bar significantly higher, our girls, that there was really no room for then notoriously woeful Bafana not to be inspired.
Today, as a nation, we are all walking with chests pumped out and proud of our boys as we claim our place among footballing nations to be reckoned with.
All these achievements on the back of the bumbling Safa House, who at every turn would not miss the chance to put their foot in it.
Remember the pay debacle ahead of Banyana’s departure to the World Cup and attempts to force the team to play on what amounted to a cabbage patch that no team counted amongst the best 24 in the world should play on?
Banyana stood their ground and refused to play a friendly match against Botswana that day. The Safa suits had to scramble about in the 11th hour to assemble a team to honour the fixture.
With the good news all-round regarding what the sport is really all about — action on the field — it has all been rosy for Bafana.
With 60% of their 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers behind them, they are sitting comfortably atop the group that has been Nigeria, who were fancied to win the group at a canter.
Jovial as the nation’s mood has been as the team opened a more-than-comfortable five-point lead in the group, news broke this week that threatened to dampen spirits.
Some palooka mandated by the virtuous Safa to do some very basic housekeeping had dropped the ball.
They failed to pick up that Bafana’s midfield maestro Tebogo Mokoena had accumulated two bookings, ruling him out of the clash against Lesotho.
As a result, Mokoena played despite being ineligible, a schoolboy era that might yet prove costly for the dream to qualify for the FIFA World Cup that is going to be hosted by Mexico, Canada, and the US.
The nation is holding its breath that a technicality regarding the late submission of Lesotho’s protest to Fifa will spare SA the blushes.
On the plus side is that Bafana have done such a splendid job that the deduction of points from that match will still leave them atop the table, not too comfortably but still with their fate firmly in their hands.
True to form, Safa didn’t fully own up to their tomfoolery but sought to hide behind the flimsy veil of silence. So don’t hold your breath; your heads will roll.
We have total belief in the coach Hugo Broos and his boys that, in the end, we will be there when the globe’s 32 finest footballing nations gather to play ball, despite Safa.
