Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba slammed the media at a press conference in Bloemfontein on Thursday accusing them of misquoting him regarding the Lucas Radebe controversy.
Mashaba empahtically denied calling Radebe
”dishonest” and rather said that the onus of the incident regarding the centre-back’s absence in the starting line-up for their match against Burundi lay squarely at the feet of Leeds United.
”At no stage did I refer to Lucas as being dishonest,”
said Mashaba.
Leeds United were loath to let Radebe fly to South Africa because the flight would aggravate his knee injury but he was scheduled to fly to the country anyway to attend the launch of the Cricket World Cup.
Radebe has indicated he would rather attend the Bafana African Cup of Nations qualifier on Sunday rather than attend the cricket function.
Striker Shaun Bartlett arrived in South Africa for a fitness test on Wednesday and after the Safa medical team checked him out they agreed that he should fly back to England on Thursday night as his groin injury would preclude him from Sunday’s match.
The Bafana team again practised their shooting on Thursday morning, a trend throughout the week as Mashaba looks to scoring goals after their 0-0 draw against the Ivory Coast. – Sapa