Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi wants the SA African Football Association to start rolling out CAF A-Licence courses in the country.
Mngithi was speaking ahead of Sundowns’ CAF Champions League second-leg match against Seychelles club La Passe at Loftus Stadium on Friday night.
Sundowns clobbered the Indian Ocean islanders 7-0 at the same venue in the first round last Sunday. The return match will also be played in Mzansi because La Passe do not have adequate facilities to host such a match in Seychelles.
For instance, Royal AM coach Khabo Zondo cannot sit on the bench when his club plays in CAF competitions. It is the same situation with Cape Town City’s head coach Eric Tinkler.
This gives a bad light on the SA system, especially with La Passe coach James Barra, who is just a physical education coach, having graduated with the A-Licence badges.
“You must take this question to the federation, do not approach it so narrowly mindedly. South African coaches want to have these CAF A-licences but there are no A-Licences courses in the country,” said Mngqithi.
“We are competing in the continental space not having qualified coaches on the bench – it is not that the coaches do not want to study, but it is because the courses are not there. It’s not that the clubs are not serious about having qualified coaches, the clubs have no control in this one.
“It requires the federation to roll out as many courses as possible to make sure that our people have the required coaching qualifications.”
About the second-leg match, Mngqithi said it was about giving more players an opportunity to show the coaches that they can break into the Sundowns starting eleven.
“They may look bad in terms of the scoreline but they still have some very good players. They are not terrible at all. Some of their players have been to trials in the Bundesliga in Germany and that tells you something.
“We also could have done better than what we did in terms of the scoreline, but we also gave them more scary moments. The truth is that we did our homework and our due diligence for every match, because we do not want a surprise, we want to know what’s going to happen. That team structurally looks close to what Pirates would provide, we knew.
“The biggest assignment we have as Sundowns is to always try and better our benchmarks, and whoever is given the opportunity has the responsibility to live up to our expectations.
“All the players must show that they deserve to play in the next match.”
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