The SA Football Association (Safa) has prioritised Banyana Banyana ahead of the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in July.
This is according to Walter Steenbok, the association’s technical director, who said the women’s national football team’s good performance at the World Cup will boost the country’s bid to host the global spectacle in 2027.
Steenbok, a former Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns technical expert, was reflecting on his five months in office since he was appointed by Safa late in 2022.
He said Safa’s immediate goal is to beef up Banyana.
After winning the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco in 2022, Banyana has had a bit of a struggle matching the standard of European and South American opponents in friendly international matches.
So, the association is reinforcing the technical team, which is led by head coach Desiree Ellis, to improve Banyana’s chances of advancing to knockout stages of the World Cup.
“The immediate priority for now is Banyana Banyana. The senior women’s national team has to do well. We are beefing up the team,” Steenbok said.
“We have brought in a technical advisor and a second assistant coach, who are both South Africans, highly qualified, and they will beef up the technical team.
“Banyana has to come out of the group stages at the Fifa World Cup in Australia/New Zealand later this year. This is important for the growth of African women’s football, as we bid for the Fifa World Cup 2027.
“So Banyana becomes the real main priority for 2023.”
Asked what he has achieved since his tenure started, he responded: “In terms of what I have done, the first was to understand the organisation [Safa] better because my whole life has been club football and scouting.
“When you come into the association, you have got to adjust and understand things a little bit better. So that has been the most important thing there.
“And what I have done, with the help of Fifa, CAF [Confederation of African Football] and the Safa was to refine the development plan that is in place and bring in a new strategic development plan that really looks at everything.”
Steenbok said the plan has been presented to the technical committee, to the women’s football committee, and the competitions committee. It now awaits to be tabled at the national executive committee meeting.
He explained: “The plan talks about everything. It talks about the organogram that we think will be able to help the association move forward, because this is a football organisation.
“So you want to have an organogram that speaks to the football association and also that talks to specific areas like talent identification.
“We have already employed two scouts who will be working to help us with scouting in South Africa and overseas. The two are David Nyathi and Aaron Mokoena.
“We have already won three trophies, two Pan-African schools’ tournament for U-15 and also the Cosafa U-17 girls who have also qualified for the Afcon [Africa Cup of Nations] .
“We also expect the U-23s and Bafana Bafana to qualify for Afcon, so we are very much on a positive trajectory.”
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