Lucas Thwala and Hleza Mofedi, who have battled for some time to find a place in the Orlando Pirates line-up, have received call-ups to join the Bafana Bafana squad for next month’s 12-nation Concacaf Gold Cup tournament in the United States.
What might appear on the surface to be more curious than the goings-on of the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice-in-Wonderland, selections were revealed on Monday by Pirates general manager Phil ”Mr Jones” Setshedi.
Setshedi was evasive in discussing why top Pirates players like Benedict Vilakazi, Gift Leremi, Lebohang Mokoena, Lucky Lekgwathi and Steve Lekoelea had not been selected for a tournament with far-reaching implications for South African soccer, but it is now common knowledge that the Buccaneers’ hierarchy have informed Bafana coach Stuart Baxter that none of the club’s top players will be released for the North and Central American Confederation Cup.
The reason? Pirates will be involved in the privately-arranged Vodacom Challenge tournament at the same time as the Gold Cup and believe ‒ for whatever reason ‒ that this is a more important undertaking than the one in which Bafana will face national teams of the calibre of Mexico, ranked sixth in the world.
Other clubs who have placed a similar embargo on their top players going to US are Kaizer Chiefs, who will feature in the four-team Vodacom Challenge along with AS Vita of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia’s Green Buffaloes, as well as Mamelodi Sundowns, who will be playing in the annual Peace Cup tournament in South Korea.
Take into account that Ajax Cape Town players will not be available to the Bafana coach because of African Champions League commitments and that only Siyabonga Nomvete and Katlego Mphela of the myriad overseas-based South African contingent have intimated they would be available for the Gold Cup, Baxter’s cupboard looks as empty of star material as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.
The Bafana coach had previously sent an urgent SOS to South Africa’s 2010 World Cup Organising Committee chief executive, Danny Jordaan, who was party to South Africa accepting the invitation to play in the Gold Cup as a ”guest” nation, to try and persuade Chiefs, Pirates and Sundowns to compromise on the issue of releasing players.
But indications thus far are that the initiative has fallen on deaf ears and the Professional Soccer League’s top clubs are sticking to their guns.
And, in the process, the whole sorry saga is becoming curiouser and curiouser. -Sapa