Bafana Bafana legend and former Manchester United strikers’ coach Benni McCarthy has fired a broadside at Safa for failing to pay some matches fees for Bafana players and called on sports minister Gayton McKenzie to exert presssure on the football body to make sure the players do not partake in the next international competitions still worried about their oustanding payments.
Last week, Safa CEO Lydia Monyepao admitted to Sunday World that the association owed Bafana and Banyana Banyana players match fees from previous camps and that they were hoping to resolve the matter before the end of the year.
Match fees and bonus struggles between Bafana Bafana and Safa were a common thread during McCarthy’s time in the various national teams.
This happened when he was a teenager in the 1990s and later when he was a top striker for Bafana Bafana. McCarthy had several run-ins with the association regarding unpaid match fees or delayed payments.
In a candid interview on our podcast, Sunday World Engage this week, the 47-year-old McCarthy said he was at a loss for words after learning about Safa’s continued tardiness regarding payment of players.
“It’s so sad and painful to hear that 20 years later, this is still happening. I thought that we fought the battles so that Safa and Bafana can be in a better position so that these players, this current generation, never have to go through that,” he said.
“I got scrutinised for that – for sticking up for the players. And to hear that now, when Bafana are again becoming a powerhouse and the pride of the nation, when they are bringing the fans back, there’s excitement and they are qualifying for Afcon – first in the group and with games in hand, something that we have not done in many years – is shocking.
“The team has Ballon d’Or representatives and the fact that Safa is still the same I cannot fathom.
“I hope the players do not despair and that they can be bigger mentally and that Safa can get it right one day.”
McCarthy called on McKenzie to intervene. “The minister must put the necessary people under pressure; that’s just what we want, so that Bafana cannot go into Afcon competitions, Fifa World Cup qualifiers, still worrying about unpaid match bonuses that they deserve and that they have earned,” said Bafana’s all-time leading goal scorer with 30 goals in 70 matches.
When asked about the current Safa leadership, McCar-thy said that it was not his fight: “I fought for too many years and for a long time. Whoever makes the decisions, they do not listen to what has been said. Since the 1998 World Cup, it continued in 2002 Korea-Japan. The same struggles.
“We fought again in Alexandria, Egypt (2006 Afcon) and the tournament was a complete disaster because of the same struggles and fights.
“Come on South Africa, when are we going to stand together and fight to get the right people in football?
“Let football govern football and not people who do not know how the game works but they make decisions and they have never kicked a soccer ball. Fifa and corporates are giving money to the federations and the federations cannot pay the players; that’s not right,” he added.
The former Ajax Amsterdam, FC Porto, Blackburn Rovers and West Ham goal-poacher said that they needed football people who can make decisions that benefit the players: “The country and the fans want to see this nation back in the top five in Africa and also in the top 20 in the world, where we were before.
“The minister of sports said that if we are not succeeding they [government] will then intervene but they should have intervened a long time ago. Hopefully, the change will come and when it does, we will be betteer,” McCarthy said.
