Bafana again tripped up by bungling Safa

FOOTBALL is by far our country’s most popular sport. Our players, soccer clubs and the national teams may not be world beaters, but we certainly have the kind of talent and quality that makes us a nation never to be dismissed or ignored.

But the one thing that is holding South African football back is its administration — especially at the level of the South African Football Association.

For years, South Africans have craved a credibly run organisation to govern national football matters with aplomb. What we have got is a rotten administration that has overseen the decline of the country’s football flagship, Bafana Bafana.

As Bafana prepared for the international friendly match against Guinea-Bissau this weekend, they did so against the backdrop of an administrative bungle over the selection of Kamohelo Mokotjo, who plies his trade for FC Twente in the Netherlands.

They didn’t know that the player had complicated his selection by taking Dutch citizenship in December. This week the association seemed confused by its own rules, not sure whether a player who is no longer a South African citizen, even if he was born here, can play for the national team or not.

It boggles the mind that an association whose business is football can be so deeply in the dark about the status of one of its footballers.

Safa president Danny Jordaan was at the forefront of those calling for overseas-based players to be considered for national call-ups. He has been a regular feature of various Safa administrations on whose bungling watch Bafana’s stock has spiralled downward.

Many people hold Jordaan in high esteem for the role he played in the country winning the right to host the 2010 World Cup.

But he cannot bask in past glory. He will be judged on what is happening now — which is the standard practice of senselessly hiring and firing Bafana coaches at the drop of a hat.

Bafana remain without a coach, three months after Shakes Mashaba was fired for, among other things, wagging a finger at Jordaan. Now South Africans are pointing an accusing finger at Jordaan for putting his personal ambitions, whether in politics or at the Confederation of African Football, ahead of his duties at Safa.

He must shape up or ship out.