Safa silences Tovey’s TV-show critics

EYEBROWS were raised this week when South African Football Association (Safa) technical director Neil Tovey was seen on pay-channel SuperSport analysing Euro 2016 matches on the same night Bafana Bafana were playing a crunch Cosafa Cup semifinal in Namibia.

Bafana secured their spot in the final with an impressive 5-1 thumping of neighbours Swaziland on Wednesday, but it was Tovey’s appearance on a panel that analysed Euro matches that got tongues wagging.

But Safa chief executive Dennis Mumble came to the defence of the former Bafana captain and told Sunday Times that Tovey actually had the football governing body’s blessing to appear on the TV show.

‘‘These comments and perceptions are two decades of miseducation of the football community about what the role of the technical director is,” Mumble said.

‘‘It is helpful for us that he stays in touch with what is happening around world football. I gave him specific and express permission to continue to be an analyst on SuperSport for that very reason because you need to know what is happening in world football.

‘‘His job is not to sit there and supervise the national team coach, [Ephraim ‘‘Shakes” Mashaba] — he does not have the time to do that.”

Tovey has often had to contend with questions about what his role at Safa really is. There have even been suggestions that he doesn’t get along very well with Mashaba but the Bafana coach himself told Sunday Times last month that nothing could be further from the truth.

Many of the critics who took to social media this week asked why Tovey did not travel to Namibia with Bafana and offer support to Mashaba and his assistant Owen da Gama in the Cosafa Cup.

But Mumble said Tovey was never supposed to travel to Namibia and has been at pains to ensure that there is a separation of his duties from Mashaba’s responsibilities.

‘‘It is not an issue with him picking where he wants to go [as far as the national teams are concerned].

‘‘But we are happy that there is an understanding and now an appreciation that the technical director is not there on a day-to-day basis overseeing the national team purely because our focus in Vision 2022 is to make sure our structures are in place. And that is exactly what he is doing, and he is doing a hell of a lot of work and a job in getting these things off the ground,” said Mumble.