Bafana Bafana need to get fans to love them again

BAFANA Bafana, as they so often do, will have South Africans chewing their nails until March next year.

It’s only then when it will be revealed whether the national football side will qualify for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon), scheduled for Cameroon next year.

It has become an all-too-familiar scenario – Bafana just cannot make qualification for major tournaments an easy journey.

It has to mess with the nation’s nerves and, in the process, create all manner of negativity around the sport.

After Bafana could only manage a 1-1 draw with Nigeria at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday, qualification for the 2019 continental event is by no means assured.

With the point earned against South Africa, Nigeria booked a place in Cameroon – but Bafana are left with a tricky away fixture against Libya; coach Stuart Baxter and his men will need a point from that match in order to qualify.

But the issues which continue to bedevil Bafana run far deeper than just qualification.

If it hasn’t been a concern before, then by now the old fogeys who operate in the corridors of power at Safa should be pulling out the little hair they have left because attendances at Bafana games have become a major problem.

It is said that there were more Nigerian supporters than South Africans in Joburg on Saturday.

If that isn’t a reason to panic for the fat-cat suits at Safa, then we don’t know what is.

Why are South Africans just not interested in their own national football team at the moment?

It’s a Gordian knot that needs to be addressed – and pretty soon too.

Is it the coach?

Are Baxter’s conservative tactics the cause? Or perhaps it’s the fact that, in this country, the clubs are just so much bigger, and more important, than Bafana?

Or is it because football in South Africa is simply not as good as it thinks it is?

Whatever the reason may be, one thing is abundantly evident: there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. And, come March in Libya, whether Bafana qualify or not is not the issue; what’s more important is to get people to love Bafana again.