For the third season running, the South African Football Association (SAFA) looks like it will be going back to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) with cap in hand, begging for some local coaches to be allowed to sit on the bench.
As part of the CAF club licensing regulations that are implemented during the CAF inter-club competitions, head coaches of the clubs are required to have CAF A licences or Pro licences from their Confederations, if they have got qualifications from outside Africa. Assistant coaches are required to have CAF B licences.
iDiski Times has learnt that Cape Town City head coach Eric Tinkler would not be able to sit on the bench when the CAF Champions League preliminary stages get underway in September because he doesn’t have the CAF A licence. But Tinkler has got the UEFA A licence, which is equivalent and in terms of quality, even better than CAF A, but still, it’s not the UEFA Pro licence which is demanded for those with qualifications from outside the continent.
Tinkler is not the only coach who is affected by this rule, other South African representatives,
Marumo Gallants, who would be playing in the CAF Confederation Cup, have just employed a 31-year-old French coach Romain Folz who came from Botswana, where he was coaching Township Rollers. Folz carries a UEFA Pro Licence, which would enable him to sit on the bench in the CAF Confed Cup, and replaced Dan “Dance” Malesela who is believed to not have the CAF A licence.
At Royal AM, they are still searching for a head coach, they will also be playing in the CAF Confed Cup. They recently parted ways with their head coach John Maduka, and whilst reasons were not clear, the issue of the licence did come up. When Maduka was still at Bloemfontein Celtic, he couldn’t sit on the bench or even accompany the team when they were playing in the away matches of this cup competition. The Malawian-born coach has since moved to KwaZulu-Natal neighbours Maritzburg United.
Sundowns are the fourth team that will be playing in the CAF Champions League and they don’t have any problems, as all their three coaches, namely Manqoba Mngqithi, Rulani Mokwena and Steve Komphela, have CAF A licences.
Because SAFA have not been able to conduct the CAF A and B licences for the past five years, a stark contrast to a counterpart like the Moroccan Football Federation, which has issued about 500 coaching licences in these two categories in the last two years, the local football mother body is forced to plead for the local coaches to be allowed to sit on the bench.
SAFA Acting Technical Director Frans Mogashoa recently told iDiski Times that they would soon be resuming with the CAF A and B licences but for now, something must be done for coaches who are not compliant and have to sit on the bench in the upcoming CAF Inter-Club competitions.
“But we’ve engaged CAF and what we have agreed on is, if there’s any club that, for example, may be participating in inter-club, but does not have a CAF A holder as a coach, then we interact with CAF to say, for example, this is the contract of the coach.
“And these are the qualifications of the coach, kindly give him permission to sit on the bench. While we are sorting out the question of the CAF A licence, and the B licence and so on,” said Mogashoa.
