MONDAY, 2.00PM:
SOUTH African Football Association (Safa) CEO Danny Jordaan announced on Sunday night that the planned training camp for Bafana Bafana in Cape Town has been cancelled. National coach Clive Barker was planning to take a squad of 20 home-based players for training at the Sports Science Institute in Cape Town on August 3-8.
The squad was scheduled to play a warm-up match against Cape XI on August 6 at Greenpoint stadium, as part of preparation for Bafana Bafana’s World Cup qualifying match against Congo on August 16 at FNB stadium in Johannesburg. Safa’s executive decided that little will be gained from the match and decided to cancel it. “The executive committee decided that, as none of our overseas-based players would be at the Cape training camp, it would not be worth taking a squad of local-based players down to the Cape, of which one player (Neil Tovey) was expected to start the match against Congo,” said Jordaan.
Jordaan said Safa accepts the value of taking the players to the Sports Science Institute and has agreed that the camp will be rescheduled for after the Congo match, but only if South Africa qualifies for the World Cup finals in France next June.
Barker expressed his disappointment at Safa’s ruling and said it would have been a tremendous opportunity to see some of the young players in action.
Meanwhile, Jordaan announced that Bafana Bafana will play Brazil on December 7 at FNB stadium. This will serve as a practice match for the national team before they defend their African Nations Cup title in Burkina Faso. “It was agreed at Saturday’s executive meeting the ideal way to prepare Bafana Bafana for the defence of the African Nations Cup and possible World Cup participation is the match against Brazil,” said Jordaan.