Football bodies in fight over soccer in SA schools

FOOTBALL in South African schools was going to be discussed this week, but the usual bad vibes emanating from the national football body means it will be unwise to dwell too much on it – just yet.

The only thing I am going to say on the subject is that the SA Schools Football Association (Sasfa) resorted to lawyers to get clarity from the SA Football Association (Safa) about what it meant recently when its president Danny Jordaan said that Safa was working hard to get football at schools on the go in a unified structure, or words to that effect.

Affirmed

You may recall that Sasfa recently had its right to manage schools football affirmed by a court. Sasfa had asked the court to intervene when it emerged that Safa had, at a meeting held in Mbombela about two years ago, resolved to dissolve Sasfa and take over the running of football in schools.

This, at a glance, would have been a sound business decision by Safa. The only problem with that decision was that Safa had, in its haste, “omitted” to inform Sasfa that it was going to table this motion and resolve it at the Mbombela meeting. So, naturally, Sasfa reacted badly to the decision to be ambushed with its disbandment in absentia, as it were. Sasfa challenged that Safa decision in court and won the case.

But Safa seems most unwilling to accept that it must stay out of schools football as the reported remarks by Jordaan seem to indicate. Add to that the fact that the matter will come up for appeal next month on Safa’s insistence.

Which brings us to the latest instalment in this saga where Sasfa has just this past week tasked its lawyers to get clarity from Safa about these remarks as it appears that they (Sasfa) have yet again been omitted from the discussion on the future of football in SA schools. So the matter makes headlines for the wrong reasons. The ball is now again in Safa’s court, as they say.

Okay, back to real football. The window period for clubs to get fresh players on their teams is nearing.

So far Kaizer Chiefs have made hay while the sun shone. They went across the border to their usual hunting grounds and found a few new players who they hope will help stamp out the club’s rather droll performance of the past two seasons or so.

Chiefs have once more gone to Zimbabwe’s Chicken Inns cupboard and unearthed some much needed talent which they hope will do the trick.

It is all good and well for them, except that the move has inspired some unflattering comments from football followers who do not love Chiefs as much as its fans do, such as buy one get one free, or some such thing.

In keeping with our stated impartiality, we say well done to Amakhosi.

On the other hand the lack of the same kind of news regarding Orlando