Neal Collins soccer
Lucas Radebe will announce his retirement from international football on Friday unless South African Football Association chief executive Danny Jordaan can come up with a plan that satisfies the increasingly urgent demands of Leeds United.
Jordaan, Radebe and his agent Gary Blumberg were due to meet Leeds coach David O’Leary and chairman Peter Ridsdale at Elland Road on Thursday in a bid to resolve the club-versus-country dispute that is tearing their captain apart.
Leeds club secretary Ian Sylvester said: “There needs to be a solution suitable to all parties, but ultimately the decision rests with Lucas and we don’t know what his position is at the moment.”
Both O’Leary and Ridsdale are believed to have made their positions clear to Radebe. Ridsdale said last week: “We are not just Lucas’s bread and butter, we are all three courses.” O’Leary has threatened to take away the club captaincy from his senior professional unless he puts a stop to his international career.
Radebe delayed the inevitable last Saturday when he failed to announce his much-heralded retirement after his record 63rd appearance for South Africa in their 1-0 win over Burkina Faso.
Last year Radebe missed 12 successive internationals largely friendlies and African Nations Cup qualifiers to keep Leeds happy. But with South Africa facing six World Cup qualifiers in African Group E before July, Ridsdale and O’Leary are unlikely to accept further disruption to a season that has seen the club struggle in the Premiership and go out of the FA Cup they were knocked out by Liverpool on Saturday while Radebe was playing in far-off Rustenburg.
That leaves Leeds with the Champions League as their only chance of success this winter.
Radebe himself confesses: “I’m in a lose-lose situation. Leeds play Anderlecht home and away next month, but South Africa play Malawi in Blantyre on February 24. On March 6, Leeds play Real Madrid in Spain but I am supposed to play in South Africa against Guinea four days later.”
n Chelsea hope to keep South African defender Pierre Issa on a permanent deal after his three-month loan from Marseilles expires at the end of the season. Their managing director, Colin Hutchinson, the Mr Fixit behind Chelsea’s Italian coach Claudio Ranieri, said: “He is here on loan with a view to a permanent transfer. We had been scouring Europe for a player of his calibre.
“Pierre is joining us from Marseilles where I think he has fallen out with the team coach.”
Issa (25) played for Philippe Troussier’s side at the 1998 World Cup, where, despite an own-goal catastrophe, he impressed as a defender.
With European football plagued by work permit and passport fraud, Issa’s French passport is a real blessing for the Blues, who expect to lose French defender Frank Leboeuf to Monaco soon.
Hutchinson said: “We will have a look at his passport and all the documentation. Once we have done that, we can get the international clearance.”
Issa’s arrival takes the Premiership’s Bafana Bafana count to five, with Radebe, Quinton Fortune at Manchester United and Mark Fish and Shaun Bartlett at Charlton.