Coach hunter Benni out of loop on Bafana choice
South African Football Association (Safa) technical committee member Benni McCarthy said on Tuesday he is as much in the dark as the rest of the country about the search for a new Bafana Bafana coach.
His disclosure will come as a shock to South African football fans as the former Bafana striker is supposed to be a member of a team that was tasked with finding the new man.
“I thought I was part of a group that was doing good to find the new coach for Bafana, but I simply just don’t know what has happened‚” a candid McCarthy said on Tuesday.
“What has stalled the process and this situation is a major bummer. There were good candidates and I was expecting that by now there would be a coach.
“But clearly, there is a holdup somewhere, but I don’t know the reason. I am in the same boat as you guys in the media.”
Bafana have been without a coach since Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba’s sacking in December. The new coach will have to hit the ground running as Bafana have a daunting away Africa Nations Cup qualifier against Nigeria in June.
“It is a major setback that we have a huge match against Nigeria in a few weeks’ time and we don’t have a coach‚” former striker McCarthy said.
“There is uncertainty because we don’t know if [caretaker coach] Owen Da Gama is going to take the team forward or there is going to be a new coach by the time Bafana play [against Nigeria].
“It is very confusing for the players because they were expecting the new coach to be watching them by now.
“We are in the back-end of the season, where many teams are fighting to win the league.
“Some are fighting for top eight and some are trying to avoid relegation and there is no coach watching all these interesting matches.
“I just hope that it gets resolved as soon as possible.
“I am a South African and I want to see my national team do well, which is something that they have not done in a while.
“I want things to be resolved, so we have a coach in place to allow him to get down to business‚ start to watch the players‚ put his team together and come up with a plan for helping us to qualify for Russia,” said McCarthy.