Benni McCarthy would have been excluded from the Bafana Bafana squad that competed in the recent African Nations Cup (Afcon) tournament had coach Ted Dumitru known the star striker had not signed a remuneration agreement.
The Mail & Guardian has obtained a copy of Dumitru’s technical report on the disastrous campaign in Egypt, in which the coach — who was axed after the team failed to win a point or even score a goal — presents a litany of accusations and excuses for his side’s performance.
The 29-page report spares no one. It fingers individual players for indiscipline and singles out McCarthy for sowing discord in the camp.
In hindsight, Dumitru says he would have excluded the Porto forward had he known that the remuneration contract that was presented to the local players — who made up the bulk of the squad — was final. Dumitru says he was duped into believing that the South African Football Association (Safa) was still open to discussion about contract issues.
It emerges that not all the players were present when the remuneration packages were discussed. None of the foreign-based contingent — McCarthy, Siyabonga Nomvethe, Sibusiso Zuma, Pierre Issa and Mbulelo Mabizela — was present and it is they who were unhappy with the salary structures.
The report lambastes Safa for being dishonest with the players and misleading the technical team into believing that the football body had discussed all the clauses of the contract with the players.
”In addition, it was wrong to include in the letter of agreement certain terms that were not initially discussed with the players, including bonuses for the knockout stages. The omission gave the players the impression that I was not completely sincere when I presented the package,” Dumitru notes.
The question is why McCarthy was allowed to travel with the team. ”I realised that it was a mistake on our part to include McCarthy … his overall attitude and behaviour was wrong from the beginning … the money issue only made it worse.”
Dumitru tries to lay some of the blame for the team’s failure on former coach Stuart Baxter, who left Safa in acrimonious circumstances late last year.
The technical report says the team would have benefited if the previous coach had left information relating to ”analyses, data and recommendations … in regard to the last three or four matches played … The first handicap we have encountered was that such necessary information does not exist.”
Safa CEO Raymond Hack flatly contradicted this claim. He told the M&G this week that documents and reports on previous matches were available: ”I gave them to Dumitru myself.”
The report blames Safa for failing to ensure that Simon Ngomane, one of the assistants, travelled ahead of the team to ”inspect and assess accommodation, training and local travelling conditions in Alexandria … It proved to be a serious omission.” The camp was an hour’s drive from the training grounds. A Safa official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the document has not yet been officially released, said: ”By the time the players arrived at the training ground, some were already falling asleep.”
Dumitru also takes issue with the media: ”A more serious search into our opponents’ records and extent of preparations … especially by the media, would have disclosed the fact that both Guinea and Zambia, for five and three years now, respectively, have unchanged squads. In addition, all our opponents in the group have benefited from adequate training camps mixed with a series of international preparatory matches. If such insight would have been considered, most probably the perception that Group C was an easy one could have changed.”
For the first time since the surprise exclusion of Gift Leremi from the final squad the technical team break its silence on the issue. The Pirates star was dismissed for ”disciplinary reasons” but the report does not elaborate.
What is the way forward? According to the report urgent attention must be given to overhauling the technical committee, which appoints the coach and his technical team. The report says South Africa has fallen far behind accepted standards for a body like the technical committee to function and discharge its duties properly.
It does not stop there, but paints a gloomy picture for a future national team. It says the country is behind schedule by at least ”a year and half” to prepare a successful team for the 2010 World Cup. Accordingly it advises that an emergency plan be put in place soon.
Dumitru concludes by stating that the players who were selected for Afcon should be retained to form the core of the future team.
Insiders say that when the report is released in two weeks, it will be a thinner and doctored one. Already there are rumours that the technical committee and Dumitru’s technical team do not see eye to eye on the contents of the report.
Sturu Pasiya, who chairs the technical committee, is said to be unhappy with its contents.