Bafana Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs legend Doctor Khumalo has lambasted the regression of the national team under the current leadership at the South African Football Association (SAFA).
Khumalo, who won the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations is widely considered one of the nation’s greatest-ever players. And reflecting on the most successful period of South African football he posed a question over why the methods of success during the golden era were deviated from.
Speaking at what was meant to be the press conference for Ria Ledwada to accept her nomination as a SAFA presidential candidate, Khumalo waxed lyrical about the legendary local figures who painted the colourful era of South Africa football – and whom he feels have been casted aside.
While addressing a wide range of topics from media being blocked from having access to the national team as in the past, he posed the question why nothing has been built since their early success after readmission to FIFA back in 1992.
“We have, for those who don’t understand… in South Africa, all our accolades, all that we have achieved was through our own coaches, Bra Shakes [Mashaba], remember the first coach to qualify the U23s for Olympics,” Khumalo said in his passionate speech on Tuesday morning.
“Clive Barker, 1996, and he took us where? To the World Cup. Jomo Sono, 2002, Trott Moloto… And what did we do? We only suppressed Pitso [Mosimane] because we thought he was a failure.
“But it took Senegal eight years to believe in Cisse and today he is the champion. Why can’t we believe in our own? Is it because of poor leadership? Then there should be a change. This is a country of champions, we cannot afford to be saying, Fish, Lucas, Doctor wow ’96. It’s 26 years ago, nothing has happened.”
Khumalo stated the goalposts have been shifted in terms of what is deemed as a success for the current national team and leadership, insinuating the standards have dropped and the lack of results is down to poor leadership where SAFA and the Premier Soccer League (PSL) do not work in tandem.
“We only strive not to win, now to qualify, this is our hope as a country. He used to say to us, they might be playing in bigger leagues, they might be earning a lot of money – the world knows them. But what I saw when we played France was embarrassing,” he continued.
“We [my generation] played against England, we played against France, we played against Germany, but through leadership, there’s only one thing that we were told in the dressing room, ‘the difference is the national anthem but they are like you guys’. And we went out and dug deep because he said we’re not representing your friends or yourselves but the nation.
“So if the nation is in crisis, what’s supposed to be done? Change is needed. Change is needed because he said it, may his soul rest in peace. So if it happens that there should be change and a new structure takes over, please, do not disrespect or disregard the efforts of the custodians of football in this country.
“Why can’t we use our own? The likes of Bra Shakes, Screamer Shabalala, Clive Barker, Jomo Sono and the list is endless to say; serve in this committee for you to guide anyone who comes in.
“We have a current coach [Hugo Broos] that I respect, why is it that he can’t meet his colleagues in the PSL? Because there’s no leadership, there’s no cohesion. Why did Clive manage to talk to all the coaches, why did Bra Shakes manage to talk to all the coaches when he was a coach?
In a twist of events, Ria Ledwaba, who was supposed to speak soon after Doctor Khumalo, was unable to attend the press conference after allegedly been threatened with expulsion from SAFA had she gone ahead.
This was confirmed by her legal representative, Leruma Thobejane who explained a circular stated that any candidate must first be approved by SAFA’s new Governance Committee before they can present themselves to the public.
Ledwaba Not In Attendance At SAFA Candidacy Press Conference
