Safa technical director pushes for qualified coaches in PSL

Newly appointed SA Football Association (Safa) technical director Walter Steenbok is recommending that coaches must have a CAF A-Licence.

Steenbok is expected to deliver a scathing presentation when the association holds its football indaba at Emperors Palace in Ekurhuleni at the weekend.


“My presentation will be aggressive and I hope that the president [Danny Jordaan] will give me the support,” said Steenbok during a media briefing in Milpark, Johannesburg on Wednesday.

“It is going to cut across local football associations up until the PSL [Premier Soccer League], and it is going to be strict.

“One of the things we want to enforce in the PSL is the CAF club licencing. We must be clear that all coaches must have a CAF A-Licence.”

Steenbok’s proposal is most likely to be met with resistance and scorn by the PSL coaches who do not have coaching qualifications, as well as club bosses who have appointed underqualified coaches.

“The plan, if approved by the congress, must start from next season. This issue of coaching qualifications was raised by the first technical director, Serame Letsoaka, in 2012,” he said.

“Coaches were given enough time to get the right qualifications, but when you have a lot of teams in the PSL who are not employing qualified coaches, it talks to us [Safa] and our members.

“We have 459 CAF A-Licence holders in the country, so we are not short of numbers. In fact, we have four CAF A-Licence holders in the first division and the PSL.

“Teams do not have to buy into this, it is legislation, and we [Safa] must enforce. This is our territory, we are in charge and we need to go to congress and say this should have been done long time ago.

“Who is coaching our players? It means the players are on their own. If you have Musa Nyatama [Swallows FC coach] as a coach who is only qualified with CAF C-Licence, or Morgan Mammila as technical director, it means the players are on their own.

“You go to Golden Arrows, the two coaches there [Vusumuzi Vilakazi and Mabhuti Khenyeza] do not have anything, and why do we expect our players to go and play in Europe.

“We need to tell the PSL to wake up, because this is killing us. Why are [we] also having international coaches who have not won anything in 10-15 years?”

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