The Bafana Bafana honeymoon came to an abrupt halt for Ted Dumitru on Friday as startling revelations emerged regarding two of the players the caretaker coach has selected for next month’s African Nations Cup tournament.
According to an Agence France-Presse report, top striker Benni McCarthy will ask the South African Football Association (Safa) to excuse him from the tournament in Egypt — ”because everything is finally falling in place for me again at my Portuguese club, Porto, and being away for as long as six weeks could send me back to square one”.
Dumitru has already announced that he would not excuse any player from African Cup duty ”under any circumstances”.
But the coach seemed to be singing a somewhat different tune when approached on Wednesday night and he declared ”the matter can only be settled in face-to-face discussions with the player — and not on the basis of newspaper reports”.
Dumitru, however, conceded that if McCarthy does not have his heart in playing in the Nations Cup, ”it has to be decided whether his presence is beneficial — though we would have Fifa’s authority to force him to play”.
And the dilemma is emphasised by the fact that Supersport United and Bafana assistant coach Pitso Mosimane on Wednesday declared: ”A player who does not want to play for Bafana is no use to the team. It is Ted’s call. But I see no point in forcing Benni to go to Egypt if his heart is not in it.”
In spite of Dumitru’s McCarthy predicament, however, it appeared mild comparison with widespread allegations that statements made by the Bafana coach regarding his surprise selection of former national defender Issa were embarrassingly off the mark.
While announcing a provisional list of 26 players on Wednesday from whom the final squad of 23 will be selected for Egypt, Dumitru said he was in possession of confirmed reports that Issa had recently been named ”player of the month” in Greece for his performances with OFI and had topped his sterling play by scoring two goals as well.
Kickoff magazine, however, quotes a top Greek sportswriter as saying Issa has not played an official game in Greece since May because of a contractual dispute between OFI and Ionikos over who owns the player.
The report continues that Issa has only recently been declared eligible by the Greek courts to resume his career with OFI in January.
”It would seem the information given to me about Issa was incorrect as far as the time factor is concerned,” said Dumitru. ”But what I said he had achieved, he did achieve. Perhaps our sources were trying to boost Issa’s claims overmuch in the process.”
And the Bafana coach said the most pertinent point is that Issa has not been selected to go to Egypt, but has only been included in the provisional squad of 26.
”Three of the players will drop out after the training camp,” said Dumitru, ”and Issa will only be judged by what we see of him for ourselves.”
Mosimane said he and Bafana team scout Simon Ngomane had been unaware of Issa’s exact record in Greece.
”We took Ted’s decision at face value,” added the Supersport coach. ”After all, he is the man calling the shots and it is not up to us to question the wisdom of his decisions. I certainly would not like that to happen at Supersport when I make a decision.” — Sapa