Will South Africa watch another Safa’s own goal?

ONLY time will tell whether the South African Football Association (Safa), after much pussyfooting, made the right call by appointing Hugo Broos as the new Bafana Bafana coach.

Benni McCarthy was the clear favourite among fans and pundits alike, and the choice of Belgian Broos has justifiably raised a degree of cynicism rather than optimism, given Safa's track record of hiring coaches who have been failures.

The position became vacant after the unceremonious sacking of Molefi Ntseki, who was surprisingly appointed to the Bafana Bafana hot seat after a string of national team appointments at youth level.

There remains a great deal of unnecessary secrecy about the selection process, but reports over the past few weeks from “insiders” indicated that Carlos Queiroz, who steered South Africa to the 2002 World Cup, was the first choice.

When Safa could not secure his services, McCarthy became the next target. According to reports, Queiroz and McCarthy were apparently too pricey, apart from other demands, mostly around choosing support staff.

Safa has not said why it failed to secure Queiroz or McCarthy, but if it was because of astronomical salary demands, it makes a mockery of their earlier statements that it will "spare no expense hiring the right coach for the job".

Up to now, Safa has jumped on the coach as the fall guy when teams failed to deliver. The most recent case was Ntseki, who failed to qualify the team for next year’s Africa Cup of Nations.

What is significant here is that no one under the Safa umbrella has taken responsibility for appointing Ntseki, who admitted he had “failed as a coach”.

It would appear there is very little sign of a culture of accountability in Safa's ranks.

As for McCarthy, he is having a tremendous run at AmaZulu, and hopefully he will get his chance soon.

It is also worrying that Broos has not exactly been in hot demand in the soccer world recently. Yes, he did take Cameroon to the Afcon title in 2017, but he has been without a job for the past two years.

As we said, time will tell…