Luis Felipe Scolari, the coach who won the World Cup with Brazil in 2002 and took Portugal to the semifinals of the recently completed tournament in Germany, has emerged as the dark horse for the plum job of national coach of South Africa. However, he will have to beat the frontrunner, Gerard Houllier, whose wife is concerned that a change of climate might exacerbate the former French coach’s health problems.
It was inevitable. Long before the 2006 World Cup final, the Afro-pessimist brigade was already muttering dark warnings about 2010. Now comes the crescendo. We can almost feel the musty colonial breath in our faces, sputtering: "Crime! Disease! Civilisation! Give it to Australia!"
The score is three-two in favour of South Africa — and there is no chance of a penalty shoot-out. So says the South African head of world football governing body Fifa, Michael Palmer, in reaction to ”faceless rumours” that Fifa was considering moving the 2010 World Cup.
South Africa’s 2010 head, Danny Jordaan, has called for dramatic changes to the way the game is run, if the continent hopes to host its first World Cup successfully. Jordaan was unequivocal about what African teams need to do to perform better in South Africa in 2010: ”Improvements are needed in all areas.”
Africa’s representation in the 2010 World Cup, to be staged in South Africa, looks endangered, with world governing body Fifa likely to reduce the number of the continent’s qualifying participants from five to four. Two years ago, Fifa’s executive committee concluded that future demands for more representation would be based on results, with the rule being “the worse the results, the fewer the participants”.
![]()
The World Cup has always been a paradox of sorts. While it is supposed to be about the celebration of cross-cultural talent and the collective ability of nations, it always debunks the widely held myth that our players possess peculiar natural skills only found in Africa.
It is the Cup of Dreams — and the Cup of Paradox. As hundreds of millions of people tune in for Friday’s opening of the football World Cup on the immaculate fields of Germany, there will be the temptation, if only for a moment, to forget the other reality: that 99% of soccer is played at amateur level.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile says he does not believe the South African Football Association (Safa) can produce a side ready to compete well in the 2010 World Cup. ”I am not convinced that Safa can deliver a squad for 2010,” he told the Mail & Guardian in an interview this week.
In a rare and frank public attack on the game’s administrators, businessman Tokyo Sexwale has warned that ”football leadership has to go back to the drawing board. The battle is hard for Bafana Bafana; we are battling out there. It is a hard thing that we are going to the World Cup without Bafana Bafana,” the former premier of Gauteng said.
Saturday’s Absa Cup final is as much a battle royal between two of the country’s premier clubs — Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs — as it is a turf war for power in South African football. There is a feeling that Pirates are taking serious chances considering how inexperienced stand-in coach Teboho Moloi is when compared to the astute Ernest Middendorp.