Soccer administrators must play the game Ntuthuko Maphumulo South Africa’s soccer fortunes will fall faster than the rand next year if South African Football Association (Safa) and Premier Soccer League (PSL) administrators do not act fast. The cracks are already showing within Safa over who signed the deal that gave all marketing rights of Bafana Bafana to Mega Pro. Safa general manager Dennis Mumble has resigned (with a golden handshake of R700 000) in connection with these squabbles. In the league, divine intervention (in the shape of doctor of divinity Robin Petersen) has not helped sort out the perennial fixture problems. Petersen has now resigned. Since its inception in 1996, the PSL has seen three chief executive officers with only one of them leaving at the end of his contract. That was Briton Trevor Phillips, the first man in charge. He was briefly succeeded by Joe Ndhlela, who left the league under a cloud connected to allegations of fraud in his previous employment at Transnet. Petersen was brought in last year but he was just too soft and had no power over the board of governors who did as they pleased. New PSL chairman Mandla Mchunu will have to curb the influence of the board of governors. The good doctor did sign up Coca-Cola to sponsor a competition to replace the Rothmans Cup (discontinued because of the ban on tobacco advertising), but that was offset by the loss of the Bob Save Super Bowl and MTN’s sponsorship for the first division. First National Bank pulled out of the popular Bob Save tournament after the final between Sundowns and Santos was effectively relegated to being a curtain-raiser to a Kaizer Chiefs vs Orlando Pirates derby. The bank moved further out of football when it handed over the FNB stadium at Nasrec to Safa.
Neither the PSL nor Safa covered itself in glory in its handling of the tragedy at Ellis Park, where 43 people died in a stampede during a game between Chiefs and Pirates. Both the league and Safa will have to try and solve these problems before the Bafana squad go to the African Cup of Nations in Mali in January and the World Cup in Korea/Japan in May. Bafana Bafana are no longer a national team but individual players who decide when to play or not something that has disrupted coachCarlos Queiroz’s efforts to build the team. Safa will have to stop begging players to represent the country and put their foot down with the clubs. The African Nations Cup and scheduled friendlies could have a bearing on how well the team does in the World Cup, so players who decline to play in those matches should face suspension or expulsion from the national team. Players called up to the Bafana squad should be released by the teams after the weekend of January 5 to 7. If a side has more than three players in the squad their league games should be suspended. Between February and mid-April there are at least seven weekends available for matches. Combining these with alternating midweek games should make for a fairly easy fixture list. This is only likely to happen if the administrators can get with the programme. The PSL will then have to be halted again in mid-April, to give Bafana time to prepare for the World Cup. Queiroz should use the month before the world spectacular to build a tightly knit group of players. This will also be a good time for the coach to pencil in friendlies against fellow qualifiers and competitive non-qualifiers such as Holland. If the PSL does not help out, Queiroz will face the same problems of players being unavailable due to club commitments. If the administrators play the game, however, Queiroz can give Bafana Bafana a realistic chance of making an impact at the World Cup.