South African football may suffer more from lack of participation in Pan-African club competitions than football authorities realise, following a statement by the Confederation of African Football of its intention to limit the country’s participants in the African Champions League and the Confederation Cup.
CAF this week explained the criteria that would be used next year for qualification for the 2011 African Champions League and Confederation Cup. Participants will qualify by means of a ranking system, in which only the top 12 countries on the continent are allowed the opportunity to field two teams in each of CAF’s premier club competitions.
Sadly, in the latest rankings released by CAF, South Africa has dropped out of the top 12, which means they can enter only one club in each of the continent’s club competitions. CAF compiles a points system in which countries attain points for their showing in club competitions over a five-year period. But South Africa has lost a lot of ground since 1995, when Orlando Pirates won the African Champions League.
In 2001 Mamelodi Sundowns lost 4-1 to Al Ahly in the same competition, while Kaizer Chiefs lifted the African Cup Winners Cup, then known as the Nelson Mandela Cup, in the same year and the country’s ratings improved significantly, enabling South Africa to enter two clubs in both competitions.
Since then South African clubs have turned 180 degrees and, instead of building on their success, have inexplicably started spurning Pan-African club competitions. If they do enter, they display a lackadaisical approach, as if they are doing Africa a favour by simply entering. In some instances, they simply withdraw, citing a lack of financial incentives or flimsy excuses — such as so-called poor travelling conditions or “ill-treatment” by their hosts, who, they claim, use dirty tactics that are not in keeping with the spirit of the game — as reasons why they are no longer interested in taking part.
“It is as if South Africans are content to play among themselves in their luxurious and money-spinning Premiership,” said a club owner in Zimbabwe. “Sometimes one gets the impression that they consider themselves far too superior to the rest of the continent. Yet North African countries like Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt never fail to enter club competitions every year and look at how good and strong they are.”
It is South African national senior coach Pitso Mosimane who sounded the dire warning to his countrymen, expressing deep concern about his country’s lack of enthusiasm about taking part in Pan-African club competitions. He enjoyed relative success in Africa as coach of SuperSport United and once reached the last four in the African Champions League.
‘They need to rough it’
“It is important to take part in African club competitions,” said Mosimane. “Our players need to experience the harsh conditions, learn about the lack of facilities in other parts of the continent to realise how fortunate they are; they need to rough it and travel in the kind of bus that looks like it could disintegrate any time.
“They need to experience hostile crowds in a packed stadium. It will build their character. It will make them stronger mentally and, by the time they get selected for national duty, they will have experienced it all while playing for their club sides. It can only help our junior and senior national teams in Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup qualifiers.”
Mosimane’s concern is justifiable. A look at South Africa’s national teams tells a sorry tale. The senior national team failed to qualify for the 2010 Africa Nations Cup.
The national ÂU-23 has qualified for the Olympics only once, in 2000 in Sydney. The national U-20 has qualified for the 1997 and 2009 Fifa World Youth Championships in Malaysia and Egypt respectively since 1992.
Two months ago Amajita were eliminated from the 2011 African Youth Championships by Lesotho. Last week they were eliminated again from the regional Council of Southern African Football Association’s (Cosafa’s) U-20 tournament, also by Lesotho, while the U-17 has never qualified for either a CAF or Fifa sanctioned competition.
This inability to qualify for continental and global events is a reflection of the domestic game. South African youngsters always look out of touch, out of depth and display a shocking naiveté at international level against their peers from across Africa, who get exposed to international club competition from an early age.
Yet the door might not be permanently closed on South African clubs. There is a possibility that the South African Football Association could ask for a special dispensation at the CAF Congress in Sudan on January 20 next year. “They can apply through their federation to CAF for a special dispensation allowing them to take part in club competition,” said CAF media liaison officer Suleiman Habuba from Cairo this week.