HIGH TIME THAT MZANZI ADDS FERTILIZER TO GRASS ROOTS

bus to the World Cup.

I have looked around and found that the only thing we have not invested in is, to some extent, the football administrative structure, and primarily, the attendant football academies.

To start with,South Africa is still hobbled to the very first basic football administrative structure with which we gained readmission with to Fifa’s hallowed grounds way back in the 1990s. That is not by itself necessarily a bad thing, but countless things in that sphere have since changed for the better.

May I remind you that when we regained admission to Fifa the now disgraced Sepp Blatter was not even the president of that organisation. He was the secretary then who went about preaching the wisdom of having a national structure and philosophy to nurture football.

Yours truly knows this as I was privy then to one such lecture by Blatter in Braamfontein, Johannesburg at the offices of a national brewer involved with our football. Blatter became president misconducted himself later and was dishonorably discharged. His reign lasted almost two decades.

Following Blatter’s tour here our football underwent profound changes. Family owned clubs suddenly employed full-time players and coaches. They also acquired dedicated grounds and offices as part of the recommended bells and whistles.

However, we have since faithfully struck to the purely,undiversified clubbased system of producing football stars, and failed dismally to implement a national football academy. And yet here we are expecting to gain different results from an old and now tired recipe.