Squirming and defiant to the end, controversial Bafana Bafana general manager Stanley ”Screamer” Tshabalala has been removed from his position with the national team for the forthcoming African Nations Cup tournament in Egypt.
The decision was confirmed on Monday by South African Football Association (Safa) CEO Raymond Hack, who said the position of general manager has been abolished and the technical staff of coach Ted Dumitru, assistant coach Pitso Mosimane and the vaguely described ”scout”, Simon Ngomane, will jointly handle administrative matters.
”The decision has been taken at the request of the coach,” added Hack. ”This is the way he wants it and we have acceded to his request.”
Hack said Tshabalala will be redeployed in the new year to a new position within the Safa structure.
Tshabalala had remained insistent that he would be part and parcel of the team in Egypt, but on Monday he finally confirmed that Hack had informed him of the decision to abolish the position of general manager for the African Nations Cup.
It would seem now that because of Dumitru’s insistence not to have Tshabalala as part of his retinue in Egypt, Bafana will tackle the tournament without a general manager — or anyone with the administrative knowledge and experience at international level required for the job.
A member of the technical staff, however, made the guarded comment that ”it will be better this way”.
Ironically, it was because of a conflict between Stuart Baxter and Tshabalala that the previous Bafana coach’s problems seemed to intensify — with Safa at that stage insistent that the general manager had to remain in his position.
Baxter, however, has revealed that ”long afterwards Safa informed me they were prepared to remove Screamer — but by then it was far too late”. — Sapa