Prima donnas without reason
THERE is a huge problem in South African soccer and it has been there for a long time. The current players are real prima donnas. Ranked number 115th in the world (what an achievement) they are overpaid losers. They parade around as if they are World Cup champions, hogging the limelight in different magazines and on television, and sometimes for all the wrong reasons.
They are undisciplined and show more interest in photo sessions than in the do-ordie motivation necessary to preserve the country’s reputation as a soccer nation.
Once the pride of Africa to where we are today. We win two or three games and we believe they are back on track, only for the wheels to come off in the very next game.
Bafana have had many coaches in the last few years and it still has not worked for them. Even the best coach, the likes of Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho would not be able to get things right.
A big cleanup is needed, starting from the top. That means getting rid of the present administrators and advisers and installing new blood. Appoint a good coach with a proven track record, no runaway comeback that didn’t get things right the first time around. Then cut the players’ salaries and bonuses by half. Only pay performance related wages and use the cut amounts to further the development of the youth in the various acadamies.
We can’t keep changing coaches if the players are just not good enough.
All I can say is that if there are no drastic changes shortly the quality of the opposition will become weaker and weaker and we will not see world-class teams here in South Africa. I must also point out that the Bafana teams of the nineties were far better than the present crop. — Clive Muller, Hamburg September 7) puts me in mind of the anti-war song “Where have all the flowers gone?” and its haunting question “Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?”
Bhisho was not the first nor, sadly, the last time that blindly loyal people have been led to the slaughter by political leaders seeking marketing opportunities.
Everyone in the Eastern Cape has heard of Nongqawuse whose false prophecy led to the national suicide of the Xhosa nation in 185657. The Bulhoek massacre of 1921, Sharpeville in 1960, Soweto in 1976, Marikana in 2012 are simply some of the better known examples of ordinary people being incited into mob mentality in the misguided belief that sufficient violence will bring peace.
The worship of violence is a fundamental cause of many of the seemingly insurmountable problems facing South Africa. Striking university students, for example, are merely doing what they have been taught to do and for the reasons they were taught to do so.
The killing will stop and real solutions found to all our problems when (or if) sufficient people find the courage to think for themselves and accept personal responsibility for their words and deeds.
“Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?” — Dave Rankin, Cambridge