What are the facts?

As things stand, the Bafana Bafana players are only expected to report to camp in the first few days of January to start preparing for the Afcon, which is not ideal for the head coach. This does not sit well with Broos, who has to get the squad ready for the opening match against Mali, as well as the other group games against Namibia and Tunisia respectively.

What’s challenging for the PSL at the moment is that there have already been a few fixtures that have been moved for various reasons, making the schedule even tighter than it initially was. With the Brazilians competing in the CAF Champions League, and SuperSport United and Sekhukhune United in the Confederation Cup, there is a big chance that fixtures are still going to be moved, which is why the decision makers at Mayfair have found it difficult to work with SAFA in getting the fixtures to end earlier in December.

Matsatsantsa, in particular, have all their Confederation Cup matches in North Africa and, depending on their travelling plans, some of their domestic encounter might need to be moved to accommodate their schedule on the continent.

Clubs are not obliged to release players outside of the FIFA window, so Broos has no chance of getting the players to go into camp or to rest a week before they meet. With injuries coming left, right and centre recently, the 71-yearold mentor could find himself having to call-up players who have not featured much for the national team for a tournament as big as Afcon. Scary!

The Siya crew tried to get hold of the PSL to comment on the matter, but they were not available at the time of going to print.